Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Forced Entertainment

Do Forced Entertainment consider criticism and use it to improve their performances?

Forced Entertainment has been around since 1984 and over the years we have received a lot of praise. For example, the Guardian Newspaper has stated that we are "Britain's most brilliant experimental theatre company." However, our work varies quite a lot and is not always enjoyed by all audiences. Sometimes in a performance, members of the audience will simply get up and leave due to the dissatisfaction of what they are experiencing. An instance of this is "Who Can Sing a Song to Unfrighten Me?", which lasts 24 hours and is not only entertainment but a test of endurance.

We also receive a lot of criticism from respectable theatre reviewers. There are many who argue that our work lacks understanding and is targeted at a minority audience that is too small. However, we believe that our work is stimulating, challenging and provocative and should therefore not always be understood and it is part of our expectations that our performances are sometimes misunderstood.

Criticism rarely directly affects our performances or next performances. The entertainment we provide is forced upon the audience and should not be adapted to satisfy the critics or else it is no longer forced. However, we once received criticism that our performances were a "bloody mess". This is a usual occurance and remark directed towards our hard-work, we were not ready to change everything we do for this one comment. But we did however, use this comment for the title of our next performance which was named "Bloody Mess".

In conclusion, Forced Entertainment does not consider criticism, unless using the comments as a stimulus for a new, stimulating, challenging, provocative and exciting performance.

3 comments:

jmriley said...

SOURCES!!!!!

ooops. Please, please, do not cut and paste in any research work, but try to summarise, only quoting a few important things, interpret, explain analyse in your own words. It's an excellent research question but you wasted it by simply letting me read what I could have found out by myself anyway. Next time....

Cosmo said...

I did not cut and paste :S

This is all my own work except the two or three quotations I made are from the critics that said it...

jmriley said...

Sorry, Cosmo, the writing was just such high quality I assumed you hadn't written it! Forgive me, what a master writer you are! Use this in your Oral (not as the I form, however) the review and critique is very high quality reflection.