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From a martini bar to a spot from a consulting chef on ‘The Bear,’ here are 6 new Chicago restaurants
Also in the mix: A Queens-born soup dumpling spot and a market with a sprawling, European-like square for sipping spritzes.
U.S. ban on Canadian alcohol imports set to begin Tuesday
A coalition representing American bourbon distilleries, wineries and restaurant workers is urging the Trump administration to resolve the trade dispute ahead of the holidays
Tomasita's, Atrisco owner is New Mexico Restaurateur of the Year
Gundrey, who was raised in the family business, said his mother taught him everything, including how to treat his employees and his customers.
WA business owners speak on losses caused by copper wire theft
Small business owners in Seattle report significant financial losses from repeated copper thefts. At Ballard’s Lockspot Cafe, owner Alison Soike dealt with three destructive break-ins that wrecked the restaurant's refrigeration, requiring $10,000 in repairs.
Opioid settlement funds could bridge some health gaps
Back when now-Gov. Maura Healey was the Massachusetts attorney general, in July 2021, she sued opioid distributors, manufacturers, and pharmacies for their prescription practices, which the state argued contributed to a national opioid crisis. What resulted was a settlement of more than $1 billion from opioid-makers Johnson and Johnson and opioid-distributors McKesson, Cardinal, and AmerisourceBergen. […]
Clatsop County health inspections for August
August was a strong month for Clatsop County restaurants as most eateries that were inspected scored in the 90s, with many restaurants scoring 100s. “The facilities that get consistent high […]
McDonald's is putting third-party ads on drive-thru screens, eyes $1 billion business
The chain launched a pilot at 450 company-owned U.S. restaurants in August and hopes the business will eventually reach $1 billion
See 14 recent business updates in Richardson
Discover 14 of the latest business and restaurant updates across Richardson, including new openings, upcoming spots, ownership changes and one closing.
Baobab Fare owners open food truck-inspired restaurant in Eastern Market
The opening comes more than two years after the concept was announced.
Family business takes Mexican dining and one-stop shopping to next level at El Primo Produce
El Primo Produce & Restaurant in Norristown is the ultimate 'one stop shop'.
2 Mexican food restaurants in El Paso failed health inspections: List
Two Mexican restaurants received failing score in food inspections this week.
Meritage to close 38 restaurants as Wendy’s fight unfolds
Meritage Hospitality Group plans to close 38 restaurants as the Wendy’s franchisee fights to retain control of 314 locations in Chapter 11.
20 Westport restaurants cited for serious violations in July 2026
In June, there were nine establishments, including two schools, cited for serious violations.
20 Westport restaurants cited for serious violations in July 2026
In June, there were nine establishments, including two schools, cited for serious violations.
As Rochester builds Destination Medical Center, some businesses say they're falling off the map
The construction of Rochester’s new rapid bus transit line is taking a toll on many businesses. Some have closed, and many of the remaining shops and restaurants say they are just barely hanging on.
Cook wipes spoon with finger and then keeps stirring
The following is a list of restaurants in Richmond and Columbia counties that were inspected Sept. 18-25, accompanied by their scores and, in some cases, the health infractions that lowered those scores. Scores below 70 are considered failing.
State Police Celebrate National Forensic Science Week
Governor Maura Healey issued a proclamation recognizing the contributions of more than 250 dedicated forensic science professionals to the criminal justice system.
Haverhill Chamber Names Damark Woodcraft Business of the Month
Damark Woodcraft of Haverhill is the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce’s September business of the month. The company, formed more than 35 years ago, makes hand-built custom furniture, kitchens, doors and more. It helps clients design homes, offices, restaurants and other settings. Mark Brady, owner and president, incorporated the business with his father in 1991.
Former Don Pedro's manager arrested after allegedly robbing South Side restaurant, affidavit says
Blanca Velasquez, 43, was arrested last Tuesday and charged with aggravated robbery in connection with an aggravated robbery at Don Pedro’s.
Last Of Us Game Stars Laura Bailey And Ian Alexander Cast In New HBO Roles For Season 3
Laura Bailey and Ian Alexander, who voiced Abby and Lev in the games, join John Goodman in HBO's Last of Us season 3, in new roles.
L. Ruth Interior Design celebrating 18 years in business with community event
Laura Ruth Edge said she had dreamed of becoming an interior designer since she was young.
Mohnen’s Darboy Family Restaurant in Appleton sold after 33 years in business
APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV) – After 33 years in business, the long-time owners of Mohnen’s Darboy Family Restaurant have announced the sale of their beloved community eatery. In a heartfelt s…
Sixth annual Oktoberfest! returns to Barefoot Landing on Oct. 3
On Saturday, Oct. 3 from noon to 6:00 PM, the sixth annual Oktoberfest! returns to Barefoot Landing, promising family-friendly fun with German and fall-inspired food and drink specials on offer from participating restaurants.
Natrona County health and food inspections (9/18/26–9/24/26)
CASPER, Wyo. — The Casper-Natrona County Health Department inspects restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, mobile food units, commissaries and
Laramie County health and food inspections (9/18/26–9/24/26)
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The Cheyenne-Laramie County Health Department inspects restaurants, bars, convenience stores, delis, grocery stores, bed and breakfasts
Major Louisville events bring visitors and sales to NuLu businesses
Major Louisville events are sending visitors into NuLu, where restaurants, shops and small businesses say foot traffic is boosting sales this weekend.wei
Pasadena Lines Up Six Events During LA Tech Week, From Health Care AI to Space Tech
Daily Newsmagazine and City Guide to Pasadena, California featuring local news, breaking news, events, weather, sports news, schools news, shopping, restaurants and more from Pasadena Now
CicLAvia Sets October Deadlines for Pasadena Businesses Joining Nov. 15 Open Streets Day
Daily Newsmagazine and City Guide to Pasadena, California featuring local news, breaking news, events, weather, sports news, schools news, shopping, restaurants and more from Pasadena Now
Pols & Politics: Minogue closing the gap in new poll, Healey still favored in general election
Gov. Maura Healey remains favored for reelection in November, but not as comfortably as in past surveys as the latest UNH Survey Center poll shows GOP challenger Mike Minogue is closing the gap.
Mount Dora restaurant says nearby roundabout construction is cutting off business
A Lake County restaurant owner said nearby construction is keeping customers away and cutting into sales; that's why he's asking for help.
Cape Cod restaurant hit with harassment, hoax 911 calls after hosting GOP fundraiser
A Cape Cod restaurant has been inundated by online threats and harassment, even a hoax 911 call resulting in a massive emergency response, in retaliation for hosting a Republican fundraising event.
Orange County restaurants shut down by health inspectors (Sept. 17-24)
There were 19 restaurants and food establishments ordered closed by Orange County inspectors from Sept. 10 to Sept. 17.
He washed dishes beneath BlackRock’s headquarters, landed his dream job there—then quit to build his family’s restaurant empire
Anthony Scotto III traded corporate security for seven-day workweeks, hundreds of employees, and a rapidly expanding family business.
Hendersonville restaurant gets ‘horrible health inspection score’ of 57: ‘I know all of the haters are going to have a field day with this’
A Hendersonville restaurant that failed its health inspection this week is confronting the result head-on on social media.
Hendersonville, TN restaurant Moby Dicky’s fails health inspection
Moby Dicky’s on Old Hickory Lake was given an "F" grade by the Tennessee Department of Health earlier this week.
Mid-sized shopping center to include Thai restaurant. Here's what we know.
Renderings show the 9,660-square-foot development will be built at 101 Gerald Drive and would house Bangkok Thai restaurant, currently housed at 3904 Johnston St.
Read about 20 business updates in New Braunfels
New Braunfels welcomes new restaurants, coffee shops and retail stores while celebrating local business anniversaries, relocations and ownership changes.
Popular Hendersonville, TN restaurant fails health inspection
Nashville News, Weather, and Sports
Covington to create special entertainment district for BLINK
There will be murals and installations from the end of the Roebling Bridge to Seventh Street, and festivalgoers can check out the city's bars and restaurants.
Employees of Eddy Street restaurants discuss recent shooting, impacts on business
Employees from restaurants near Notre Dame say the recent shooting on Eddy Street has negatively impacted business. Gun violence in the neighborhood to the south of Notre Dame has spiked in the past two years.
NCL unveils entertainment for Norwegian Aura, including Whitney Houston tribute
The Norwegian Aura, which will debut in May 2027 out of Miami, features the headlining production “Whitney: A Celebration of Whitney Houston.”
NCL unveils entertainment for Norwegian Aura, including Whitney Houston tribute
The Norwegian Aura, which will debut in May 2027 out of Miami, features the headlining production “Whitney: A Celebration of Whitney Houston.”
Latest Merced County health inspections: How local businesses fared
The latest round of inspections was made from Sept. 17-23.
Latest Merced County health inspections: How local businesses fared
The latest round of inspections was made from Sept. 17-23.
Wilonsky: Dallas’ plate of entertainment, shot of enforcement
Dozens of venues claiming they’re really restaurants are being cited by Dallas City Hall for being bars.
New Business Licenses: 9.25.26
Chesterfield and Henrico report restaurants, janitorial services, two dental practices and more. (BizSense Pro required)
Verrado Marketplace announces next wave of businesses opening this year
When fully completed, Verrado Marketplace will house more than 55 retailers, restaurants and service providers.
Bellingham's business closures more of a churn than a trend, industry onlookers say
Full-service restaurants hurting most. But when one place closes, another opens up
Downtown Round Rock business rebrands as Alcove, opens expansion
The bar and restaurant formerly known as Sociedad rebranded to its original name of Alcove, owner Michelle Ly confirmed in September.
Western Ranch Motor Inn sells business; bar and restaurant closing for extended-stay plan
The restaurant and bar inside the Western Ranch Motor Inn is closing.
Local Mexican restaurant, Azul, closes after 19 years in business
(FOX40.COM) — Beloved Mexican restaurant Azul is closing its doors after 19 years in business, according to a social media post. The owner posted on the restaurants Instagram on Wednesday thanking …
Mental and Behavioral Health Profiles – Memorial Regional Hospital’s Outpatient Behavioral Health Center
Encouraged by growing awareness of mental health and continued progress in reducing stigma, Laura Pawlicki, LCSW, believes compassionate care begins with building trust. As a social worker at Memorial Regional Hospital’s Outpatient Behavioral Health Center, she is committed to helping individuals and families navigate life’s challenges and improve their well-being and quality of life. “Mental […]
Healey proposes new Health Care Stabilization Fund
Gov. Maura Healey filed a $2.24 billion supplemental budget Wednesday that would pump more money into the workforce that supports SNAP benefit recipients and establish a new healthcare fund as the …
Sacramento's Azul restaurant closing after 19 years in business
After nearly two decades, Azul Mexican Food and Tequila Bar announced this week that it will close its Midtown Sacramento location due to impacts from rising costs and declining business over the last two years.
These Phoenix-area restaurants miss the mark on health scores this week
A Little Caesars in Mesa and SoCal Fish Taco Company in Gilbert are among Valley restaurants on this week's Dirty Dining. Jason Barry reports.
These Phoenix-area restaurants miss the mark on health scores this week
A Little Caesars in Mesa and SoCal Fish Taco Company in Gilbert are among Valley restaurants on this week's Dirty Dining. Jason Barry reports.
These Phoenix-area restaurants miss the mark on health scores this week
A Little Caesars in Mesa and SoCal Fish Taco Company in Gilbert are among Valley restaurants on this week's Dirty Dining. Jason Barry reports.
These Phoenix-area restaurants miss the mark on health scores this week
A Little Caesars in Mesa and SoCal Fish Taco Company in Gilbert are among Valley restaurants on this week's Dirty Dining. Jason Barry reports.
These Phoenix-area restaurants miss the mark on health scores this week
A Little Caesars in Mesa and SoCal Fish Taco Company in Gilbert are among Valley restaurants on this week's Dirty Dining. Jason Barry reports.
Healey proposes new health care stabilization fund
Gov. Maura Healey filed a $2.24 billion supplemental budget Wednesday that would establish a new health care fund as the state prepares for federal funding cuts.
Tutta Bella scales back restaurants as it shifts focus to wholesale business
Tutta Bella closes multiple Seattle-area locations to focus on wholesale pizza production through its Kroger distribution deal.
McDonald’s to spend $8.5B on revamping restaurants, tech and franchise support
McDonald's plans to provide $8.5 billion in franchisee support through 2036 as part of its NEXT strategy to modernize restaurants and boost growth.
Big Night Entertainment: Nightlife meets culinary innovation
From transforming a 1950’s-style diner to operating 20 casino restaurants, nightclubs, and more, 20 years later.
Belmont Farmers’ Market Offers Lifeline to Boston Business
Farmers Market Manager Hal Shubin doesn’t remember how he first came across Mei Mei when he and his wife had dinner at its former Boston location, but it was good enough the first time around that he returned for more. “I like food, and that sort of is the theme that runs through everything in my life,” he said. “I must have heard about it somewhere. The people at the counter were friendly, the food was good, everything was great.” So when he read about the restaurant’s struggle to stay open during COVID, he offered a helping hand. He reached
Now AI is trying to gobble up dinner reservations
A venture capitalist got banned from Resy for using a personal AI assistant, opening up a conversation about how bots may make dining out a headache for diners and restaurateurs alike.
Salt & Pepper named Tiburon Peninsula business of the year
Paulino Monterroso started as a dishwasher in a Tiburon cafe in 1992. Now his Salt & Pepper Restaurant on Main Street is the Tiburon chamber’s 2026 Business of the Year.
Valkyries first playoff game marks Thrive City’s shift to permanent ‘entertainment zone,’ allowing to-go alcohol
The Valkyries are set to host their first playoff game at Chase Center Sunday and it marks the start of a permanent change at Thrive City, as full-time entertainment zone which allows customers at the bars and restaurants to take alcoholic beverages out into the 11-acre piazza outside the arena.
Maura Higgins reveals how she broke Mark Ballas’ tooth in “DWTS” rehearsals
“I’ve taken elbows to the face before, it’s fine,” Ballas said.
The Peninsula is getting a new dining option, with a taste of Tuscany
Starting early next year, The Lobby — a fifth-floor spot that serves breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea — will transform each evening into Italian restaurant Comunità.
3 Central Florida restaurants shut down after health inspections last week
The Department of Business and Professional Regulation shut down three Central Florida restaurants during the week from Sept. 14-20 after conducting health inspections.
Fountain Square construction wrecked businesses. This has to stop.
Fountain Square construction closed my restaurant. Indianapolis should learn from other cities, the owner of Magdalena writes.
Business booms at Montgomery's Perennial restaurant after NYT honor
A local Montgomery restaurant built on sustainability has seen an overwhelming uptick in business since being named to the The New York Times Restaurant List for 2026.
Public health report: Inspectors find critical violations at eight restaurants in August
Health Department inspectors found minor health violations at nearly half of the 73 restaurants, stores, hotel, and other locations they inspected in
Jeffrey Adams, an established restaurateur's first business, is closing after 14 years
Jeffrey Adams on Fourth, an upscale New American restaurant in downtown Winston-Salem, closes after 14 years due to financial challenges.
Entertainment-Booking Startup Ande Raises $52 Million From Lightspeed, Redpoint
Personal AI agents like Instinct and Muse have promised to take away the hassle of booking hard-to-get restaurant reservations, Broadway tickets and sporting events. Now, a startup is coming out of stealth to do the same for corporate entertainment—events, group dining, catering, sporting events ...
Wendy’s moves to take 314 restaurants from bankrupt Meritage
Wendy’s terminated Meritage Hospitality Group’s franchise agreements for 314 restaurants, citing about $147 million in unpaid royalties and fees.
Is 50 the new 60?
Subscribe TL;DR: Younger generations are showing signs of worse health compared to earlier-born cohorts at the same age This backward “drift” is showing up both in mortality risk and chronic disease Worsening trends in obesity and diabetes are the most consistent signals Taking the long view, we’ve made astonishing gains in health and life expectancy in the last century. Global average life expectancy has more than doubled from 32 years in 1900 to 73 years in 2024. (But don’t forget, there were still old people when life expectancy was 32). As people lived longer, they also generally lived healthier along the way. It turns out that avoiding things that can kill you early, like malnutrition and lots of childhood infections, also keeps you healthier later in life. In a classic 2004 paper, Finch and Crimmins proposed that cohorts of children who benefited from fewer early life infections had less lifetime exposure to inflammation and cardiovascular disease later in life, accelerating mortality improvements at older ages. Poor nutrition in the womb has also been linked to a higher risk of later chronic disease. The upshot is that improvements in childhood health can pay dividends many decades later. The combination of better living conditions (nutrition, sanitation) and medical advances (antibiotics, vaccines, blood pressure meds, etc) meant that people’s healthy lifespan generally expanded, even as they lived longer. Aging researchers call this best-case scenario “compression of morbidity”—meaning we delay the onset of disease and disability even faster than the years of life we are adding. During my 20+ year research career, we could generally bank on the idea that younger generations would not only live longer but also keep getting healthier along the way. “60 is the new 50” as they say… Enter “Generational Health Drift” Sadly, this expectation of steady progress may be changing. You’ve probably heard that US life expectancy gains have slowed to a crawl in the past couple of decades. Mortality improvements are also slowing (though less dramatically) in many other high-income countries (you can read more about that in a review paper I wrote here). Mortality is a very blunt health measure, but it is often a good barometer for the broader population health trends happening underneath. And we are now seeing that younger generations may be in worse health at similar ages compared to earlier born cohorts. My collaborator Prof. George Ploubidis at University College London coined this worsening health in more recently born cohorts “generational health drift.” “Generational health drift” is bad news on multiple fronts. Most obviously, we don’t want our health progress to go backward. But the timing is also bad, since our populations are aging. In demographic terms, “population aging” means that the proportion of the population at older ages (i.e >65 years) is increasing. Fun demography fact: Current population aging is not due to the recent declines in the birth rates making the news, but declines in fertility decades ago, after the “baby boom.” As baby boomers reach older ages, the smaller cohorts behind them mean the percentage of older adults will increase. For example, the share of the population age 65 and older in the US increased from 12.4% in 2004 to 18.0% in 2024. This story of population aging was written long ago. Many worry that population aging will put pressure on health care and pension systems. But if people reach older ages in better health than in years past, those fiscal pressures would be less dire than projected. Healthy older people can also continue to contribute to society in many valuable ways, including paid work, caregiving, community service….even high political office 🤷. On the flip side, if younger generations reach retirement age in worse health and with more disabling conditions, this could magnify the societal challenge of population aging. Evidence for worsening generational health A recent paper that I LOVED in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Dr. Leah Abrams and colleagues examined which birth cohorts (aka generations) were behind worsening US mortality. Behold the Lexis diagram (cue swooning demographers). Calendar time is on the x-axis, age on the y-axis. Birth cohorts can be followed over time as they age on the diagonal lines moving up and to the right. This figure plots the year-on-year % change in all-cause mortality at a given age. Green shading indicates mortality improvements over time, white is stagnation, and gray shading indicates worsening mortality. Following the diagonal line for those born in 1950, you can see a noticeable shift from green to gray that follows this cohort for most of their lives. This gray shading shows generally worsening mortality for the 1950 to 1959 birth cohorts compared to their predecessors across all ages. Concerningly for my GenX and elder millennial peeps, there was also a deterioration in mortality for birth cohorts born in the 1970s and 1980s, visible as dark gray areas at ages 30 to 45 during the 2010s. While some of these mortality changes reflect specific shocks such as the opioid epidemic, most deaths still occur from major causes of death such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. For cancer, the gray in the top left corner of the figure below reflects the legacies of smoking for older cohorts, followed by a period of green with improvements in cancer mortality as smoking rates declined. But the white/gray shading in the bottom right corner highlights a stagnation and reversal of the cancer trends, with cohorts born around 1970 to 1985 experiencing worsening cancer mortality. This deterioration was most noticeable for colon cancer mortality, possibly linked to obesity or dietary factors. Not just dying more, but less healthy along the way. A recent paper by Dr. Laura Gimeno of University College London (of which I am a co-author), found evidence that more recently born cohorts in Great Britain have stagnating or worsening health. A stylized picture of what“generational health drift” might look like: The review paper found: Rates of childhood overweight and obesity were highest among Gen Z. Rates of diabetes in the 40s almost doubled from 3.1% among the Baby Boomers to 5.9% in Generation X. Gen Z reported higher rates of poor mental health in adolescence compared to earlier-born groups. These UK results are consistent with studies showing worsening health across generations in the US as well. A 2021 US study found that more recently born cohorts had worse biological markers (like blood pressure and blood sugar) than earlier generations at the same age. A separate 2022 study of Americans aged 50 and over found that more recently born generations had a higher number of chronic diseases, with younger age of disease onset. A 2024 Lancet paper found that in the US, women born in 1945 had 33% obesity prevalence at age 50, rising to 48.2% for women born in 1970 turning 50. So what’s going on, and can we turn it around? We don’t have a definitive answer for what’s causing the deteriorating health of younger cohorts, but circumstantial evidence points to worsening trends in obesity and diabetes in both the US and UK. Remember that cohort trends reflect lagged effects of early environments, and younger generations have faced both earlier onset and more severe obesity across their lifetimes. Despite these very concerning trends, the future is not set in stone. We’ve reversed poor generational health trends before: drops in smoking are a major reason cancer and heart disease deaths fell so dramatically in recent decades. GLP-1 drugs may finally turn the tide against rising rates of obesity and diabetes, though it is still early days. But things could also get worse…for example from a return to higher levels of childhood infectious diseases that can have a lasting impact on health. See for example: [ ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) [ Don’t You Forget About Me(asles): The Virus That Erases Immune Memory ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) Jenn Dowd, PhD · March 24, 2025 [ Read full story ](https://jenndowd.substack.com/p/dont-you-forget-about-measles-the) Even as an optimist, emerging data on the “generational health drift” has my full attention. For most of my research career, we took it for granted that each generation would be healthier than the last. But if present trends continue, **50 could be the new 60….**and Gen Z celebrities will soon look older than Paul Rudd :). Stay well, Jenn Share the Health! If you found this post useful, please share it with a friend. Share
How lip-syncing to AI let Forced Entertainment ‘play the game of theatre’
Today we have a fascinating piece by long-time Forced Entertainment fan Ben Kulvichit, speaking to Tim Etchells about their latest show Cold Sweat, how they are integrating lip-sync and AI voices into their work, the question of ‘authenticity’ on stage, and how lip-sync has even opened the door for them to make “something a little bit like drama”. This piece is a paid partnership with the Southbank Centre, where you can see Cold Sweat next month – we’re very grateful to the Southbank Centre for their ongoing support for Exeunt. Holly Williams ‘It was immediately interesting and uncanny’ **By Ben Kulvichit** “Is the microphone on?” So goes one of the opening lines of Signal to Noise, delivered by a human performer lip-syncing to an AI-generated voice. The voice is American, cheery but sluggish, slowed down into a gelatinous drawl. It repeats ad infinitum in a farce of stuckness; an answer never materialises. I find myself asking the same question as I hop on a Google Meet call with Tim Etchells, the artistic director of Forced Entertainment. We spend five or ten minutes frowning at each other, muting and unmuting, me gesticulating in semaphore into my webcam, checking if I am coming through now, restarting the laptop. To Etchells, I appear exaggeratedly mouthing words, my voice missing. In this gloopy purgatory of broken communication, life imitates art imitates life imitates art. We try a Zoom instead. Forced Entertainment, the pioneering British theatre company who have been at the avant-garde of performance since the 1980s, turned an interesting artistic corner with Signal to Noise, created on the occasion of their 40th anniversary. The whole performance employed this lip-sync technique to AI voices; on the face of it a left-field move from a company whose identity has long been grounded in the earthy, immediate presences of its performers and its unassuming, low-tech approach to theatricality. The technique, however, turned out to provide the company with a “rich new seam” of artistic enquiry, and has now spawned a trilogy of works. The second instalment, Cold Sweat, plays at Sheffield Theatres, Southbank Centre, and Lancaster Arts in October, while the third part, Everything Must Go, has been touring in Europe and is slated to come to the UK in 2027. As is often the case with Forced Entertainment shows, the main conceit for this work didn’t arrive until quite late. They were “four or five weeks into rehearsals for Signal to Noise,” Etchells recalls, and getting nowhere. Away from rehearsals, he had been playing around with feeding “weird texts” to AI voices to see how they would cope with them – “basically for my own amusement” – and was compelled by the uniformly “serviceable, benign, good-natured” tone they would read in, no matter how poetic, fractured or experimental the writing. On a hunch, he brought some examples into rehearsals and the performers gave lip-syncing a go. “It was immediately interesting and uncanny,” he recalls, with the performers having to deal in the moment with the problem of mapping themselves onto another artificial ‘performer,’ which itself was dealing with the problem of a very human text. “Almost all the writing for these projects would be useless to us unless it was done in this way,” says Etchells. “We wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’s too poetic. It’s too fictional. It’s too tangled.” But exploring lip-syncing along to the text has opened “an enormous reservoir of ways of thinking about writing and performing.” Subscribe to Exeunt, and get two in-depth pieces on theatre a week, direct to your inbox Subscribe Forced Entertainment have long been sifting through the detritus of popular culture, from daytime TV to end-of-the-pier vaudeville, magic acts and clown shows, to find frameworks for their own unusual entertainments. Lip-syncing, then, makes sense for them to experiment with. As a mode of performance, it’s wired into popular consciousness through pop stars trying to convince stadium audiences of their liveness, or those same voices as channeled through the made-up lips of contestants on RuPaul’s Drag Race, or movie dialogue spreading virally through the host bodies of TikTok users. For Etchells, lip-syncing is often about “approaching real voices and trying to take on their aura,” subsuming that original human presence into yours. “There’s a very basic, elemental sort of theatre magic to it, produced in this very easy way.” This broad approach resonates with instances of lip-syncing within contemporary performance, too. In works like Re-Member Me and Showmanism, performance artist Dickie Beau acts as a kind of spirit medium for archival recordings (this process of re-membering – as in, giving corporeal form to voices – relies on his masterfully precise actor’s technique), while Frankie Thompson is similarly possessed by a host of characters ranging from a nine-year-old Jacob Rees-Mogg to Cliff Richards, all of whom she finds compellingly nauseating, in the exorcism ritual that is her latest show, Horrible Things. What’s different about Forced Entertainment’s use of lip-syncing is that here, there is no original presence to be channeled. The performers are instead taking on what Etchells describes as “the voices of nobody,” or rather the “phantasmic, aggregated echoes” of the many many voices on whose data the AI has been trained, and which are now conjuring into existence words they never actually said. There is a sort of mournful, empty quality to these voices, having “washed up” far away from the people they originally belonged to, to find themselves in stranger’s mouths listing objects, wondering if anyone can hear them and glitching in interminable loops. There is a cold, sad anonymity to it all. Etchells remarks that occasionally the software company he used has notified him that particular people are withdrawing their voices from the platform, instructing him to cease use of those voices. Using these technologies in performance certainly brings up ethical questions around digital rights, consent, identity and ownership, although in the grand scheme of things, Etchells is fairly blasé about it: of all the purposes someone’s voice might be put to without their knowledge, “an avant-garde performance is probably the least of their worries.” [ ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/frankie-thompson-horrible-things-essay-mental-health-compulsive-behaviours-pleasance-courtyard-soho-theatre) [ Frankie Thompson: How I manage my own ‘horrible things’ at the Edinburgh Fringe ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/frankie-thompson-horrible-things-essay-mental-health-compulsive-behaviours-pleasance-courtyard-soho-theatre) Exeunt · Aug 25 [ Read full story ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/frankie-thompson-horrible-things-essay-mental-health-compulsive-behaviours-pleasance-courtyard-soho-theatre) For the performers, though, lip-syncing to these strange, artificial voices is an odd task, requiring them to bend their live, human presence into the shapes produced by machines. Politically, it mirrors processes that are already at play in the continued computational automation of human life. Etchells brings up James Bridle’s writings on new technologies as a reference point: one example Bridle gives is of “chaotic storage”, a logistics technique employed by Amazon fulfilment centres whereby items are stored not according to traditional methods of categorisation or alphabetisation, but in a way that an algorithm determines to produce the most efficient routes for ‘picking’ based on customer purchase patterns. This appears completely random and incomprehensible to humans, with paddling pools sitting next to USB sticks sitting next to blowtorches, and so for the warehouse workers, the process of picking items becomes completely reliant on technology which tells them where to go. Our world is increasingly being designed not with humans in mind, but rather machines. As Etchells puts it, “technology malforms the space, and then you end up having to live in it.” Initially, Forced Entertainment tried their best to live in the world of machines: “I was in the it’s-got-to-be-perfect school of lip-sync,” says Etchells. But with their aesthetic being so tied to the failing act, the slipping mask, the shoddy costume, “it’s no surprise really that that didn’t last.” Instead, the performers got to enjoy being late for a line, or playing games with each other, “stealing” each other’s voices. Etchells compares it to the principles of ventriloquism, in which a free-floating voice unattached to a body is fundamentally discomforting and “sort of traumatic”. That discomfort is equally as alluring to Forced Entertainment as the satisfaction of precision, the pretence of authenticity only interesting if shown to be a pretence. Lip-sync has also opened up new avenues for the company. Having been allergic all their lives to Plays-with-a-capital-P, with Cold Sweat Forced Entertainment find themselves approaching something a little bit like drama. Rather than the presentational arena of Signal to Noise’s open white stage, Cold Sweat places us more decisively in a “fictional locale”: what appears to be “the aftermath of some disastrous party or backyard drinking binge” where three figures – family members, or neighbours, perhaps – are the last ones standing. “It’s all quite acrimonious and accusatory, everyone’s talking over each other.” For Etchells, this more fictional mode is “a door that we’ve never been able to open. We’ve just never really gone there.” Perhaps it is the technique of lip-syncing, an extra buffer of mediation, that allows them to venture away from the here-and-now without feeling that they have to commit to the “psychological claptrap” that comes along with acting; to be able to “play the game of theatre, without getting one’s hands too dirty.” As I wonder how else the impulses behind Forced Entertainment’s work have changed over time, it occurs to me that over the last ten years of new creations, with the exception of If All Else Fails, the company’s performers haven’t ever spoken on stage: there were two shows without any language at all, Out of Order and Under Bright Light, and then this trilogy of lip-sync works. Etchells agrees it’s a shift away from earlier productions, that were so often about “the actual voices of the performers and their actual presences. We had a lot of money, in some ways, on an authentic approach to what it might mean to speak on the stage.” But this sense of authentic presence itself had a fakeness to it; these days, Etchells can’t stand that mode of being onstage where performers “are here to be cheeky and witty versions of themselves. I don’t want to be charmed.” Pulling back into a more anonymous space has resulted in works that feel slightly sharper-edged, more brutal in a way. “All of these shows are post-Brexit, post-Trump, post-truth, post-everything,” Etchells notes. Speech, charisma, authenticity – these things feel politically loaded, and perhaps warmth and openness just don’t feel like the right tools to reflect the world we’re living in. “It feels like the space is closing down, and we’re trying to deal with the fact that the system, the structure that you’re in, is more oppressive and more powerful. It probably always was, but I think we’re just more tuned to it now.” Yet even without their voices, the performers’ distinctive presences – ones that many audiences have followed around for years, if not decades – still, inevitably, shine through as they physically navigate whatever unending task the system of the piece has set for them. They’re still trying to keep up with the onslaught of text, still running about, changing costumes, moving stuff around. The human is always stuck in the teeth of the machine, jamming the smooth, frictionless cheeriness of the not-real, gesticulating silently, trying desperately to communicate. Cold Sweat is at Sheffield Theatres, 2 to 3 October; Southbank Centre, London, 9 to 10 October; Lancaster Arts, 14 October [ ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/exeunt-recommends-the-best-autumn-theatre-2026-lives-of-others-standard-of-living-our-friends-in-the-north-lanny-) [ Exeunt recommends... the best autumn theatre ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/exeunt-recommends-the-best-autumn-theatre-2026-lives-of-others-standard-of-living-our-friends-in-the-north-lanny-) Exeunt · Sep 16 [ Read full story ](https://exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/exeunt-recommends-the-best-autumn-theatre-2026-lives-of-others-standard-of-living-our-friends-in-the-north-lanny-) This piece was paid for by the Southbank Centre. Such support helps Exeunt to keep publishing the most interesting writing, about the most exciting theatre. Interested in partnering with Exeunt? Visit our Advertise with Exeunt page, where you can get more information, download an advertising pack, and find our contact details.
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