FE Recall: No.26 – Verity Leigh

It’s 1997 and I am delighted, excited and slightly terrified to have been offered the job of Administrator for Forced Entertainment – the company whose work I have loved most since discovering a whole world of theatre which isn’t plays, dance with talking in it, and a load of weird-shit performance art over 4 years working at the Green Room in Manchester.  Before I start, Deb has invited me to come to Sheffield to see an early run-through of the new show Pleasure in the FE studio, followed by post-show debate and discussion in the pub down the road.  The show is very much not finished, but still bleakly brilliant, troubling, dark and complex.  Everyone on stage is naked at some point (which I don’t think made it through into the final touring version) and I would love to say I thought of the line in Speak Bitterness ‘We acted only when it was essential for the nudity’ but that would be a lie as in 1997 my head was not yet full of fragments of text from FE shows.  The trip to the pub is in no way bleak, troubling or dark, it is purely brilliant, as these intimidating icons of contemporary performance turn out to be kind, welcoming, generous, and almost as happy to have a new full time administrator as I am to be it.”

Verity Leigh (FE years 13-18/40)