fOrCed entertainment and On tHe tHOusandtH nigHt

fOrCed entertainment (uk)

and On tHe tHOusandtH nigHt

A six hour durational performance where the public are free to come and go as they wish throughout the performance.

A line of eight performers dressed up as Kings and Queens in cheap red cloaks and cardboard crowns tell a story which somehow, in its many dips and turns, seems to include many, if not all, of the stories in the world. The performance remixes everything from film plots, to religious stories to traditional tales, jokes and myths, through to personal stories, scary stories, sex stories, banal stories and children’s stories. Over six hours the performers compete, interrupt, exaggerate - their improvised storytelling moving between tiredness and hysteria, absurd vulgarity and surprising tenderness.

‘And on the Thousandth Night’ was created in September 2000 for Festival Ayloul in Beirut and draws on one section from Forced Entertainment’s epic twenty-four-hour performance ‘Who Can Sing A Song to Unfrighten Me?’ commissioned by and first performed at Southbank Centre in 1999.

photo: Hugo Glendinning

sOutHBank Centre

Sunday 15 April 3pm – 9pm Southbank Centre, Purcell Room

tickets: £13 book now: Southbank Centre Box Office 0871 663 2500 ‘And On the Thousandth Night’ is big, lively, intelligent theatre, made with the simplest of tools.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung