The Coming Storm **

Forced Entertainment is an experimental theatre company that has been going for 28 years. Their devised show The Coming Storm at Battersea Arts Centre celebrates the energy which has kept this company strong, but isn’t matched by invigorating ideas.

In their attempt to reinvent the traditional forms of storytelling, they fail to replace it with something substantial. The actors take turns telling stories which barely get past the opening before another actor intervenes, then another, and so on in this repetitive manner. The Coming Storm is constantly moving and yet remains static, never developing into something more. The performance not just runs away with itself, dissolving into pure, but supposedly intended chaos. Deliberate or not, this lack of any structure or control can only be described as: messy.

The Coming Storm opens with Terry (Terry O’Connor) relating, in her thrilling monotone, the essential elements which should make up a story. This speech is far too long, and exemplifies The Coming Storm’s ironic tone as her ‘story’ doesn’t possess any of the qualities she describes, and extends into the ‘play’ as whole (these cannot be called stories nor this production, a play, it’s altogether something so entirely different that I can only approximate with the nearest concepts framed by inverted commas).

Photo Credit: Hugo Glendinning

After a while, I realise that the company has been playing with us. I’ve been grappling for links between these tales which aren’t there, and therefore it’s difficult to consider any of the production values seriously (and which were bare minimum besides). Mirroring their incomplete anecdotes, they slip in an out of random costumes which don’t fit, and aren’t done up, from the two costume rails on stage. Beside these are some instruments, chairs, a machine which creates a sound like the wind blowing…everything is there to be used at some point to little effect, and highlights the invention which goes into fiction by focusing on the fact that we’re in a theatre. Forced Entertainment’s ideas are inventive, and challenge the conventions of storytelling that have become the norm; but this doesn’t make the show insightful. I do remember a dragon in a hospital ward, a dying mother, a motorcyclist named Killer, but little else. Unfortunately, everything Terry says in the opening is right; without any real storytelling – it’s difficult to follow wholeheartedly. Richard Lowdon’s story about his mother – whether it’s true or false – verges upon a tender moment, before being cut off by Cathy Naden. The Coming Storm is a series of disappointments. Even the absurd decorations which make this production funny – most notably, Lowdon and Claire Marhsall’s awful dancing – is repeated until it’s dull.

Their use of music should revitalise this show, but barely adds entertainment value, let alone significance. Since none of the players were instrumentalists till taught by Phil Hayes, their simple tunes and inconstant rhythms are lost in the pandemonium of this production. It’s all well and good that they’ve learnt some instruments and are developing the layers of their production – but no one pays to see a Grade One pianist, do they?

The cast are referred to by their real names; the acting itself is incorporated in their acting out the stories they tell. It’s difficult to call this acting, when it’s more like playtime.  When the focus is not upon the person holding the microphone, the others bang things and instruments, vying for attention like absolute children. These distractions are far better constructed than the actual speeches, and I’d happily watch a crocodile chew a man’s leg off, over a pretentious interpretive dance.  Forced Entertainment is an appropriate name for all the wrong reasons in this production.  For a long time, Lowdon wanders about with a sack on his head, and hangman’s rope on his hand, trying futilely to kill himself. This was undoubtedly the funniest moment in the production because I finally I felt an affinity with a character.

Beyond this grand vision fragmented narratives, the company themselves have little charisma. I’m not compelled to care about what I’m watching, so despite the ideas behind this show, the last word I can use to describe it is stimulating, when my brain had drifted off to an altogether saner reality. I’m all for innovative performance, but in this case, found it was more worthwhile to wonder what to have for dinner. (I had a stew if you’re interested – that, at least, went down a storm.)

The Coming Storm plays at BAC until 23 June. It will return on tour in the Autumn.