About

“...at the forefront of performance and innovation.” The Stage

Two performers engage in an absurd test that seems to shift and change as they work their way through it. Fragments of a language lesson. Questions from a personality quiz. Slogans from some future society.

The performers laugh, hesitate, ask for more time. The test continues. As the clock ticks it’s not even certain if the subjects of the test are the audience or the performers.

Comical and tangled If All Else Fails is a new collaboration between Sheffield’s Forced Entertainment and dancer and choreographer Seke Chimutengwende. Performed by Chimutengwende and Cathy Naden, one of the founder members of the group, the piece is a dialogue of speech and movement, questions and answers.

Drawing on the artists’ mutual interest in improvisation, and in setting up complex, comical and unstable performance situations, the piece brings together two powerful forces in the contemporary theatre scene to create a perplexing and original exploration of new territory.

If All Else Fails is a Forced Entertainment production. Co-produced by Cambridge Junction & Sheffield Theatres. Forced Entertainment is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.

Cast and creative team

• Director: Tim Etchells
• Dramaturgy: Tyrone Huggins
• Devised and Performed by Seke Chimutengwende & Cathy Naden
• Lighting Design: Jim Harrison
• Production Management: Jim Harrison