Life on the edge as actors push back the boundaries of theatre

Two companies, highly acclaimed in their fields – both from Sheffield.

Forced Entertainment were labelled by the Financial Times as the best group of actors in Britain. The Guardian said the company has "produced some of the most exciting and challenging theatre of the past few decades".

Hugely celebrated on the Continent, they regularly appear in theatre festivals throughout Europe, Australia, Japan and America – and a number of festivals, in Germany and Brussels, are built around their appearances.

Third Angel, smaller in scale, also hails from Sheffield. Run by artistic directors Alex Kelly and Rachael Walton, the company is 15 years old and is beginning to attract similar acclaim to that enjoyed by Forced Entertainment, a company which has been based in Steel City for all 25 years of its existence.

Both companies, while quietly appreciated by theatre audiences in the know here in the UK, are much more heartily embraced around the world and in Europe in particular, where audiences seem more open to the experimental edge of theatre.

When Alex Kelly was setting up Third Angel, he was inspired by Forced Entertainment, as he explained in an essay for the Yorkshire Post last year.

Forced Entertainment began when Tim Etchells and five other graduates of Exeter University decided to base themselves in Sheffield and see how far they could go if they pushed at the boundaries of British theatre.

Etchells, artistic director of the company, says the avant garde theatrical group has always been embraced on mainland Europe more

than at home simply because of tradition.

"British theatre remains saddled with this historical notion that theatre is about narrative realism," he says.

"It was hard at first, but things have changed over the last decade, as audiences here have begun to embrace the kind of work companies like ours is producing. It is exciting to be recognised for what we do at home, but we do wish that happened more."

The way the company makes work might sound idiosyncratic to theatre-goers raised on a diet of the structured play, but it produces thrilling work.

Every show begins with the six members of the company going into a room with an idea and devising the show – to the layman, making it up. However, with a rehearsal period of six months a normality, the stories and stage plays this group 'make-up' are so powerful that not only do they have a huge effect on audiences, they also inspired the South Bank Show, back in the mid-90s, to dedicate a programme to the company.

Trying to pin a label on a Forced Entertainment show is like trying to catch the wind in a colander, but the latest show, The Thrill of It All – in Sheffield for two nights this weekend – is a continuing evolution for the six creators, joined on stage by a large cast who dance the night away.

"It falls roughly into the category of disastrous Vaudevillian dance, cabaret," says Etchells, with the confidence of a man who knows that his shows, even when they begin with seemingly abstract concepts, speak to an audience.

"It looks like a show you might see on a cruise liner – which goes horribly wrong. The jokes turn into arguments, the dances are a disaster. It deals with the thing we find interesting, which is breaking the boundaries of performance."

Like Tim Etchells, Alex Kelly begins with a concept.

Kelly explores similar territory with shows which ask questions about what theatre performance means and what it can achieve. His show, Class of '76, involved Kelly tracking down the people from his childhood class photo and telling the stories of the people he found. Heart-warming and deeply moving, it was an highly acclaimed piece of theatre.

He also started with an idea for his latest show, What I Heard About the World, first presented at the Forge Festival in Sheffield, a theatre festival which saw new work presented in raw form.

Kelly says: "We started off with an idea of standing on stage and asking people what they knew about countries around the world and also by interviewing people and taking the stories, then re-presenting them.

"We then spent some time exploring the idea in a workshop and what was fascinating was the idea of fakes and forgeries. I've never been to Japan, but I have a very clear idea in my head about what it is like from all the information I've been fed about it over the years.

"That as a concept was really interesting – that we carry an idea of the world around in our heads, and of places that we've never been to."

In experimental theatre fashion, Kelly took himself off into a room with collaborators and began working on the idea – and six months later, the show is being presented again in Sheffield.

For fans of theatre, seeing both these Sheffield companies in their home town should be a thrilling occasion.

What I Heard About The World, Sheffield Studio, to October 30.

The Thrill of It All, Lyceum, October 15 and 16. Tickets 0114 249 6000.