It's time to party again with Forced Entertainment. We've been here before, of course, down in the bowels of the disco pub amid the lurex and the tinsel, knee-deep in cigarette butts, booze and piss, like a never-ending Christmas party. Tomorrow there will be regrets.
But for now, the talk flows like the drink. Two women talk into microphones confessing, accusing, joking, threatening, their mouths an O-gape of smeared lipstick. A guitarist strums a tune. A man in a mask and a party hat lolls drunkenly. Around his neck, a sign proclaims "drunk twat." He peers at a video screen upon which a small boy does magic tricks and talks about the sinking of the Titanic. The masked man stares blindly as if he's searching for something he lost.
Not the women. One glances idly in the direction of the child. "Cunt," she mouths idly. There is something extraordinarily shocking about this. But then Forced Entertainment's 18th show lays everything bare. Alcohol leaves these people naked, with nowhere to hide as the prejudices, aggression and limp jokes pour forth like vomit. The women have a running gag about a courtroom, oblivious to the fact that it is they who are on trial.
It is not an easy show to like. It lacks the flashes of tenderness that illuminated previous shows. It makes boredom into an art form. Yet there is something compelling about it too. Brutal and ridiculous at the same time. Like watching a disaster unfolding before your eyes in which none of the participants realise that they are the catastrophes. "I'm leaking," giggles one of the women. The whole ship is going down. The music plays on, another bottle is opened. Just life as usual stretching into an infinity.
Disco Relax is at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton (01902- 321321), tonight and tomorrow, and at Phoenix Arts, Leicester (0116-255 4854), on Friday.
