‘We’ve never met before, have we?’

To the sound of looped applause and canned laughter, three performers take part in an impossible illusion – part mind-reading feat, part cabaret act, part chaotic game show – as they endlessly revisit moments of defeat, hope and anticipation.

Taking popular culture as its starting point, Real Magic presents an unstable trap that speaks to the complex political place we find ourselves in, creating something that is poetic, challenging, funny and provocative.

Caught in a world of second chances and second guesses, variations and changes, distortions and transformations, Real Magic takes you on a hallucinatory journey, in a compelling performance about struggle, optimism and the desire for change.

Forced Entertainment, the legendary Sheffield-based group, is led by artist and writer Tim Etchells. It explores and explodes conventions of genre, narrative and theatre itself. Infamous for exciting, entertaining, challenging and questioning audiences, the group plays a key role in the development of contemporary theatre, and continues to exact a huge influence on generations of theatre-makers in the UK and worldwide.

Photo: Maria Baranova