Dance and Physical Theatre Previews: Forced Entertainment

Since their inception in 1984, Forced Entertainment have been pushing the boundaries of theatre, discovering humorous and evocative alternatives to the tyranny of the script and conventional staging. Now a staple on theatre courses, they have become part of the establishment they once challenged: their show Bloody Mess, which came to Tramway in 2004, suggested a mature company that made radical performance hilarious and accessible.

For We Are Many are a young Scottish company, and their production Sugar and Shit demonstrated the extent of Forced Entertainment's influence. Relying on many of the innovative techniques Bloody Mess had showcased, they leapt between easy laughter and unbearable poignancy, allowing each performer to develop a distinctive character through the mismatch of dance, mime and narration. By asking a series of big questions, before refusing to provide any answer, FWAM amused and discomforted the audience in equal measure, displaying considerable promise even as their sources were evident.

Against this, Forced Entertainment's latest - The World in Pictures - was an embarrassment. Using exactly the same structure as past shows - in which the chaotic comedy alternated with dark meditations on mortality - the company neither managed to develop their characterisations nor challenge the audience's thinking. Taking the idea that history is re-written, misunderstood and finally forgotten, and working this through a badly rehearsed school play, is unoriginal and shallow. The rare bursts of excellence, such as Richard Lowden's comedic vulgarity and nudity, or a melancholic speech about the horrors of the twentieth century, are only miserable reminders of the company's potential. While Bloody Mess orchestrated apparently random activity into horrific, hysterical set-pieces. The World in Pictures could not lift itself above the mayhem into coherence. Relying on a single, ambitious narrative to link the sketches, ironically, hemmed the company into predictable reflections and obvious jokes.

Beginning and ending with low-key monologues, interspersed with deliberately amateur dancing that came across as crude parody rather than sharp critique, and far too preoccupied with undermining the suspension of disbelief than re-inventing stage-craft, The World in Pictures operated as a tribute act to Forced Entertainment. The trite conclusions - however dressed up in knowing humour - failed to challenge, and would be as well in a Daily Mail editorial as a supposedly radical theatrical event. They solemnly announce that everybody dies and everything is eventually forgotten: the disappointment of this show will be as memorable as the delight of their last and, perhaps, this marks the death of their vibrant revisionism.