Bloody Mess

Published Monday 8 November 2004 at 10:20 by Aleks Sierz

It is easy to say that performers are vulnerable, or just show-offs, or panicked by fear - it is much harder to create a show that is just about that, just about being a show.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Forced Entertainment - one of Britain’s hippest live art companies - offer its insights into how it feels to perform. Bloody Mess features a clown telling the story of the universe from the Big Bang to the end of the world, plus an anthology of scenes in which hairy roadies play air guitar to screaming heavy metal music. One woman asks us to imagine fucking her and then puts on a gorilla suit, another woman explains that she wants to make us cry, two nude men discuss the different kinds of silence and two clowns - egged on by a cheerleader - have a playground fight.

Yes, it is a bloody mess, but so skilfully put together that you’re never bored. Stupidity of this order is positively inspiring and the show features a mix of incidents in which the ludicrous and the profound hold hands, however uneasily. Although the laughter is born out of panic about the liveness of live performance, its childlike surreality has a touch of the sublime about it.

Uncompromising, thought-provoking and gloriously silly - this is sheer theatrical perfection. Happy birthday guys.