The Voices

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Based on a series of inventive, moving and comical stream-of-consciousness texts by Tim Etchells, The Voices revealed its protagonists through their wishes and desires for the future - from the predictable and the clichéd to the extraordinary and unexpected.

Performed by Forced Entertainment, invited guests, and performers drawn from the area around each venue, The Voices had a total company of 20, making it the company's largest performance to date. A smaller version of The Voices was made especially for the Prater studio space at Volksbühne, in Berlin.

Parts of The Voices were first developed for Crowd Scan, a radio play for BBC Radio 3's The Wire. The texts also feature in a number of video pieces by Tim Etchells including Kent Beeson is a Classic & an Absolutely New Thing and My Eyes Were Like the Stars which you can learn about on Tim Etchells website here.

Credits

Conceived and devised by the company
Performers in Berlin: Robin Arthur, Sonia Augurt , Katie Ewald, Jerry, Killick, Tobias Lange, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Ben Neale, Terry O'Connor, John Rowley, Tori Vazquez.
Performers in Glasgow: Robin Arthur, Ewan Cameron, Luke Cavanagh, Helen Gould, Tania Guerreiro, Jerry Killick, Mary Agnes Krell, Tobias Lange, Richard Lowdon, John Macaulay, Claire Marshall, Terry O’Connor, Patricia Preston, Eleanor Rogers, John Rowley, Catherine Stirrat, Carol Turner, J. Simon van der Walt.
Performers in Warwick: Robin Arthur, Julie Carson, Nicholas Cooke, Simon Day, Helen Gould, Jerry Killick, Kate Kordel, Mary Agnes Krell, Tobias Lange, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Newrouz Mawlood, Ben Neale, Terry O’Connor, John O’Hanlon, Sabreen Pervaiz, John Rowley, Jon Tipton, Alison Ward.
Performers in Sheffield: Paul Allender, Robin Arthur, Kiya Bale, Deborah Davies, Catherine Gooing, Helen Gould, Peter Kennedy, Jerry Killick, Mary Agnes Krell, Alan Lane, Tobias Lange, Richard Lowdon, Katie Mara, Claire Marshall, Sue Morton, Terry O’Connor, Susanne Palzer, John Rowley, Martin Ware.
Performers in London: Robin Arthur, Nicholas Cooke, Katie Ewald, Davis Freeman, Helen Gould, Richard Hawley, Wendy Houstoun, Jerry Killick, Tobias Lange, Richard Lowdon, John Macaulay, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Ben Neale, Terry O’Connor, Bruno Roubicek, John Rowley, Tory Vasquez, Alison Ward.
Direction: Tim Etchells
Text: Tim Etchells
Design: Richard Lowdon
Lighting Design: Nigel Edwards
Soundtrack: Found Sources

Co-produced by Volksbühne Berlin, Warwick Arts Centre, Sheffield Theatres and Tramway, Glasgow.

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The Voices

Press

"unnervingly familiar, achingly funny, linguistically sly and quite superb."
Glasgow Herald

"powerful and touching."
Der Tagesspiegel

Performance Text

Read some excerpts of the different monologues from The Voices here.

I am going to have a great big house and a basement romper-room with a big high definition colour TV and all the latest gaming consoles and a games room and games and a pool room and a big fridge always full up of beer and coke and I will be like Elvis Presley always larking about with the guys and like Tom Hanks in Big - a big kid in a rich guys apartment and able to do anything.

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I will design a special disguise of a costume with utility belt and bright colours or a cloak and definitely a mask so that no one who sees me can know who I really am so that I can go out on the street and do good (I will swear a promise to only use my powers to do good) and to keep my secret I will learn to use a sewing machine and do the costume thing myself or maybe get someone to do it at a fancy dress place.

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When I die there'll be a big silence like after a big atomic explosion and in the gap just this big amount of nothing. Mum will cry and dad will cry and Charlie will cry and both my sisters will cry and they'll say don't cry don't cry but that will only make them cry even more and no one will sleep well that night. My dog will sit on the porch and howl and cry and refuse all food and get thinner like bones. It will be impossible to sleep, not because the dog is keeping people awake with that barking but because of me, that I am dead and dead and gone, gone gone….

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I will practice long hours and I will push when others say stop and when others give up I will push on and I will be alone in the mirror at the bar in the room on the stage and I will dance it and people will say that it is poetry in motion…

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I will slip through the city like completely unnoticed. My face will be so ordinary no one will see me and if they ask afterwards like 'did you see that man?' people will say 'who?' or 'what was there someone here?' and if they scan the surveillance tapes from the streets or a shopping mall I will not be there.

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