Forced Entertainment: Cold Sweat
Figures on stage move to strange rhythms and try to articulate their dreams and desires in a comic, absurd and subversive new work.
Cold Sweat is a new theatre work from Forced Entertainment, with original texts and sound from the group’s artistic director Tim Etchells.
Layering music loops with AI-generated voices, the figures onstage are in play of some kind. Or a TV soap. Fragments of a drama are bound together by a mood of emotional and physical overload.
The figures onstage are channelling confusion, struggling to articulate desires, dreams and uncertainties, looping their way through speeches and statements that shift between revelation and cliché.
This a show that is ‘undeniably hilarious but also frankly unsettling in the questions it raises about the crisis of representation in the age of AI.’ (Un Fauteuil Pour L’Orchestre)
Digging deeper into the lip-syncing mode they established in 2024’s work Signal to Noise, Forced Entertainment’s virtuoso performers map their bodies to the strange rhythms and tonalities that the nonhuman AI voices produce. The result is an absurd, comical, unsettling and poetic piece of contemporary theatre.
Need to know
A post-show talk will follow the performance on Friday 9 October.
Conceived and devised by: Tim Etchells, Forced Entertainment company director.
Devised with and performed by: Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall and Terry O’Connor
Text, composition and sound design: Tim Etchells
Stage design: Richard Lowdon
Lighting design: Jim Harrison
Production management: Jim Harrison
Producer: Eileen Evans
Cold Sweat premiered at Théâtre de la Commune in Paris, France in November 2025.
Cold Sweat is a Forced Entertainment Production. Co-produced by KONTRÄR, Stockholm, Sweden and created with the support of La Commune, Centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers and La Ménagerie de Verre, France.
Reviews
‘a manifest act of resistance’
Un Fauteuil Pour L’Orchestre
‘there is something fundamentally subversive and true in this creation’
Un Fauteuil Pour L’Orchestre
Image gallery
Times & tickets
Dates, times and prices
Dates & times
09 Oct & 10 Oct 2026
Run time
1 hour and 30 minutes (approx)
All timings are approximate and subject to change
Standard entry
from £23.50 + £4 booking fee
Ticket prices may be adjusted without notice to reflect demand.
Concessions
Learn more about concession discounts
Refunds and exchanges
Find out more about our refund and exchange policy
Become a Member
Members get free entry to the Hayward Gallery and the first chance to book our entire programme of events, including go-down-in-history gigs, concerts with world-class orchestras, and talks from cultural icons and political giants.
Join today from £60
For your visit
This event is held at the Purcell Room Southbank Centre
The Purcell Room is located in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.
Plan your visit
The Purcell Room is an auditorium located within our Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Getting here
Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.
The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues. More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.
We’re cash-free
Please note that we’re unable to accept cash payments across our venues.
Access
We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.
All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.
All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.
Food & drink
From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.