Forced Entertainment, the Sheffield-based theatre company widely regarded as one of Britain’s most influential contemporary performance groups, has announced a return to UK stages this autumn and winter with two distinct productions — the UK premiere of a new work exploring artificial intelligence and performance, and a northern tour of their acclaimed condensed Shakespeare series.
The company, which has sustained a collaborative practice for more than four decades, last toured extensively during its 40th anniversary season in 2024. The upcoming programme marks a significant homecoming to domestic stages following international engagements, and arrives at a moment when questions surrounding AI-generated creativity are at the forefront of cultural debate.
Cold Sweat: AI Voices Meet Live Performance
The UK premiere of Cold Sweat will open at the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse at Sheffield Theatres on 2 and 3 October 2026, before transferring to the Purcell Room at London’s Southbank Centre on 9 and 10 October, and then travelling to the Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster on 14 October.
The production features original texts and sound created by the group’s artistic director Tim Etchells, with performers lip-syncing to voices generated by artificial intelligence software. The approach builds directly on the company’s 2024 work Signal to Noise, in which the group first explored this mode of performance.
Etchells described the piece: “Cold Sweat is the second of our projects made using texts written by me but spoken by AI software and then lip-synced by live performers. It’s an uncanny mix of the real and the unreal, the physical and the digital — something that becomes comical and absurd, but also something deeply unsettling. What’s really interesting about this piece is also that it hovers between something ‘naturalistic’ or ‘movie-like’ and something much more poetic and strange. There’s a visceral intimacy to it too, which audiences really respond to.”
The work sees performers mapping their bodies to the rhythms and tonalities of nonhuman voices layered over music loops. The figures onstage navigate confusion, cycling through speeches that shift between earnest disclosure and hollow cliché — a meditation on communication, authenticity, and the boundary between the human and the digital.
The production arrives as theatre-makers across the UK increasingly grapple with how to incorporate or respond to AI tools, and Forced Entertainment’s approach — using the technology as a dramaturgical device rather than a backstage aid — places the company at the vanguard of that conversation.
Tabletop Shakespeare Returns to the North
In November, the company will tour Selected Works: Table Top Shakespeare across the north of England. The series, which has earned a devoted following since its development, presents condensed retellings of Shakespeare’s plays performed by a single actor seated at a one-metre table, using everyday domestic objects as stand-ins for the characters.
Venues for the tour include Sheffield Theatres (10–12 November), Cast in Doncaster (13–14 November), Barnsley Civic (17–19 November), and Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot (26–28 November).
Etchells spoke about the series’ appeal: “The table top Shakespeare pieces are pretty unusual in the body of our work but they’re a fantastic introduction to the playful performer-led approach we have — really accessible and dynamic tellings of the Shakespeare stories in everyday language that really open things up and connect for audiences. What we love also is that the low level puppetry we use in the project — everyday domestic objects are arranged on the table top and used as stand-ins for the characters — is both ridiculous and comical, and at the same time serious and truly effective theatrically.”
The Sheffield run will feature six different plays across three evenings, including Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Doncaster’s Cast will host The Comedy of Errors, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Hamlet. Barnsley Civic will present Coriolanus, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, Twelfth Night, and Othello. Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot — itself a recently opened venue dedicated to celebrating Shakespeare’s northern connections — will host the same six plays as Barnsley across its three evenings.
About Forced Entertainment
Founded in Sheffield in 1984, Forced Entertainment comprises six core artists: Tim Etchells, Richard Lowdon, Robin Arthur, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, and Terry O’Connor. The company has performed across the UK, Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia, and is considered a foundational force in the development of contemporary British theatre.
In 2016, the group received the International Ibsen Award, one of the world’s most prestigious prizes in theatre, joining previous recipients including Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, and Jon Fosse. Their work draws influence from drama, dance, performance art, music, cabaret, and stand-up, and has inspired successive generations of theatre-makers. The company also runs workshops and creative projects with young people in Sheffield and other cities.
Tickets and further information are available from each venue’s website. Full tour listings and additional details can be found at forcedentertainment.com.
