Lancaster Arts is proud to welcome back Forced Entertainment with If All Else Fails their new comical and tangled collaboration performed by Seke Chimutengwende and Cathy Naden, and directed by Tim Etchells with dramaturgy by Tyrone Huggins.
Two performers engage in an absurd test that seems to shift and change as they work their way through it. Fragments of a language lesson. Questions from a personality quiz. Slogans from some future society. The performers laugh, hesitate, ask for more time. The test continues. As the clock ticks it’s not even certain if the subjects of the test are the audience or the performers. Drawing on the artists’ mutual interest in improvisation, and in setting up complex, comical and unstable performance situations, the piece brings together two powerful forces in the contemporary theatre scene.
The show has been described as “a discombobulating interrogation” and a 'cruel, comical game of repetition and reversal' by The Stage.
We would love it if you would join us for a post-show discussion (40 mins) following the performance with the performers, Seke Chimutengwende and Cathy Naden, who will be joined on the panel by theatre maker and writer, Daniel Bye, who teaches on Lancaster University's Creative Writing course, and Chair Andrew Quick, a theatre maker, artistic co-director of imitating the dog and professor at the university.
“…Near legendary…at the forefront of performance and innovation.”
The Stage (UK)
Please be aware that there is a strict no latecomers policy for this show. The performance will begin promptly at 7.30pm and any audience members arriving after the performance has started will not be permitted entry. Please allow plenty of time for travel to the venue.
