Amidst the omnipresence of ongoing lockdowns and social distancing, the Sheffield based company Forced Entertainment turns to the web tool Zoom to present their new PACT co-production ›End Meeting For All‹ in which they explore the trials and tribulations of a new everyday digital reality. In place of the planned world premiere of their latest stage work ›Under Bright Light‹, PACT will stream three episodes of ›End Meeting For All‹ starting on 28.04. 

Created in April during the Corona virus lockdown, Forced Entertainment’s ›End Meeting For All‹ is a fragmentary online work in three short episodes, each taking the form of a Zoom meeting. With members of the group calling in from their separate home bases in Sheffield, London and Berlin, the familiar grid of screens is soon beset by technical difficulties and awash with creative misunderstandings. There are fake tears and bad wigs, missed connections, smeared make up and glimpses from the window as well as an unsteady stream of interruptions by cats, noises in the corridor and ghosts. Sometimes poignant and often ridiculous, troubled and strangely hallucinatory, ›End Meeting For All‹ summons a world in which the lockdown appears to have been going on for a very very very long time – a meeting that never quite happens and which soon becomes a chaos of costumes and confusion, mismatched intentions and electronic errors.

Did you enjoy this and want to know more? A comprehensive overview of Forced Entertainment's work can be found on the company's website. There you also have the opportunity to support Forced Entertainment in developing further work for digital distribution: forcedentertainment.com

Falling Into Place
A note on ›End Meeting for All‹ by Tim Etchells

›End Meeting for All #1‹
Conceived & Created by Forced Entertainment Performers: Robin Arthur, Tim Etchells, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O’Connor Directed by: Tim Etchells Zoom advice and screen recording: Jason Crouch Post-Production video: Hugo Glendinning

›End Meeting for All #2‹
Conceived & created by Forced Entertainment Performers: Robin Arthur, Tim Etchells, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O’Connor Directed by: Tim Etchells Zoom advice and screen recording: Jason Crouch Post-production video: Hugo Glendinning Post-production sound: John Avery
 
With thanks for music in episode two:
J. S. Bach, ›Sarabande from b minor partita no.2 for violin solo‹ (Violin - Aisha Orazbayeva)
Alasdair Roberts, ›Slowly Growing Old‹, from the album ›Farewell Sorrow‹

›End Meeting for All #3‹
Conceived & created by Forced Entertainment Performers: Robin Arthur, Tim Etchells, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O’Connor Directed by: Tim Etchells Zoom advice and screen recording: Jason Crouch Post-production video: Hugo Glendinning Post-production sound: John Avery
 
With thanks for music in episode two:
J. S. Bach, ›Sarabande from b minor partita no.2 for violin solo‹ (Violin - Aisha Orazbayeva, https://aishaorazbayeva.bandcamp.com)