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A performer in a gold dress and blonde wig is sat on a chair holding a bottle of wine in each hand
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Forced Entertainment: Signal to Noise

Witness the battle to break out of repeating cycles in the UK premiere of Forced Entertainment’s playful and unsettling, comical and deadly serious performance.

More details for Queen Elizabeth Hall
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An upbeat spectacle which is slowly breaking apart, Signal to Noise presents a churn of fragmented speech, from altercations to unexpected weather reports.

AI voices are enlisted to perform the text, their unreal chatter mixing interior monologues, unfinished jokes and off-topic interviews. It all sounds right – more or less human, more or less real. What could go wrong?

The six performers lip-sync all the voices, bringing life to these disembodied speakers. In the process they summon a strange and compelling world where the question of what’s human and what’s not, what’s real life and what’s just pretending is never far away.

Etchells’ musical score mixes everything from filmic atmospheres to noise, xylophones to slowed classical strings, beats, trumpets, grunge guitars, and birdsong, but – as ever with the company – the performers are the heart of the work, animating it with the energy and inventiveness that Forced Entertainment have made their calling card.

Created as the group celebrates its 40th birthday, the show is a powerful mix of performance magic and deconstruction which opens a space for the audience to reflect on the strangeness of interactions.

Signal to Noise is a Forced Entertainment production.

Co-produced by HAU, Hebbel Am Ufer, Berlin; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt; PACT Zollverein, Essen; and Theatre Garonne, Toulouse.

Credits
Conceived and devised by the company
Tim Etchells director
Devised and performed by Robin Arthur, Seke Chimutengwende, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O’Connor
Tyrone Huggins dramaturgy
Nigel Edwards lighting design
Jim Harrison production management

Signal to Noise is part of Forced Entertainment at 40, a special London-wide programme in partnership with the Southbank Centre, Battersea Arts Centre and The Place to celebrate 40 years of tearing up the rulebook.

Need to know

Age guidance
For ages 14+
Event information

Latecomers are not admitted, so please arrive in advance of the event’s listed start time.

Signal to Noise is part of the programme Forced Entertainment at 40. Also taking place at the Southbank Centre is Tim Etchells & Tony Buck: Go On Like This.

‘In the end one wants to toast another 40 years of FE’

Frankfurter Rundschau

‘absurd, charming and witty’

Nachtkritik

Performers stand on a stage around a variety of props including chairs, a ladder, buckets and fake plants
Hugo Glendinning
View larger image 1 of 4. Performers stand on a stage around a variety of props including chairs, a ladder, buckets and fake plants
A performer stands in a gold dress smiling and holding one arm up, clothes racks are in the background
Hugo Glendinning
View larger image 2 of 4. A performer stands in a gold dress smiling and holding one arm up, clothes racks are in the background
Performers move around a stage holding microphones, the performer in the foreground is holding a bucket
Hugo Glendinning
View larger image 3 of 4. Performers move around a stage holding microphones, the performer in the foreground is holding a bucket
A performer in a leopard print shirt holds a microphone and a ladder
Hugo Glendinning
View larger image 4 of 4. A performer in a leopard print shirt holds a microphone and a ladder

Access

This event is Captioned.

For your visit

This event is held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall Southbank Centre

The Queen Elizabeth Hall is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.

Queen Elizabeth Hall building at Southbank Centre View larger image

Plan your visit

The Queen Elizabeth Hall is home to both our second-largest auditorium and the Purcell Room.

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.

Places to eat and drink whilst you’re here