NEWS: Tomorrow’s Parties @ Live Theatre

Image by Hugo Glendinning

Tomorrow’s Parties is pure speculation. Throughout the show at Live Theatre, which takes place from Tuesday 29^th-Wednesday 30^th November, the two performers on stage enjoy the pleasure of invention as they speculate about what the future might bring. It’s a simple premise and simple setting framed by coloured fairground lights, but don’t be fooled. This seemingly minimal performance soon reveals itself as a lo-fi theatrical explosion.

Their suppositions take them in different directions as they imagine futures both possible and impossible: utopian and dystopian visions; science fiction scenarios; political nightmares and absurd fantasies. The result is playful, poignant and at times delirious.

The artists at Sheffield-based theatre company Forced Entertainment have been collaborating to make original theatre and performances together since 1984. For them, it’s all about collaboration: co-operating as equals over the years and building up a truly shared language, repertoire, skills and ways of working. The group is deeply committed to live theatre and the way the performance generates energy and tension from its presence in a room with other people. There’s a commitment to making performances that explore the contemporary world too, performances that excite, challenge and entertain audiences.

Tomorrow’s Parties does just that, for who among us has not entertained notions of an alternative future, grappling with the hopes and fears that arise from our present reality? Ultimately, of course, the future depends on what we do today. Taking time out to explore various futures with Forced Entertainment at Live Theatre seems like a good plan to me.

Tomorrow’s Parties is at Live Theatre, Newcastle from Tuesday 29^th-Wednesday 30^th November.