WE all feel despair and hope at various points, but rarely at the same time. These contrasting emotions are brought together in Real Magic, though, a new production from Sheffield group Forced Entertainment that forms part of a three-day residency at the renovated Attenborough Centre.

The performance is based around a chaotic game show (as well as a mind-reading feat and cabaret act), in which the actors endlessly experience that moment of tension that comes when you feel you are on the brink of great joy or crushing disappointment.

This knife-edge situation leads to a wider existential question – can we control our own lives? We might want something desperately – even if it is winning a game show – but that does not mean we will get it.

“That kind of moment is at the core of any of those kinds of gameshow structures,” says Tim Etchells, artistic director of the six-person performance group that formed in 1984. “There’s always this moment where you’re going to win or lose. That’s what this piece keeps returning to and investigating.”

With its theme of immobility and characters being stuck in an anguished, helpless position, Real Magic has shades of the work of Samuel Beckett. The group promise to bring a degree of absurd humour to proceedings, too – another Beckett trait.

“The thing about agency and change in our performance is that in this Beckett-like way the figures are trapped,” says Etchells. “They are stuck in this fascination of the thing they are doing and the question is to what extent they can initiate change.

“That’s all played out in this microcosm of a ridiculous game show but it’s really about how agency works outside the walls of the theatre.” Is Beckett a direct influence on Forced Entertainment?

“I would say this piece is definitely a reference to what he did in terms of pushing theatre and language. The flow of work we’ve been involved in has come from theatre groups and improvisation, not from writers as such, but of the writers Beckett is up there as a reference point.”

Forced Entertainment have showcased a range of performance mediums in the 30 plus years since their formation, taking a pick and mix approach to theatre. Their press release makes this point.

“We’ve made lists, played games, spoken gibberish, stayed silent, made a mess, dressed up, stripped down, confessed to it all, performed magic tricks, told jokes, clowned around, played dead, got drunk, told stories and performed for 24 hours at a stretch. We’ve worked on texts, we’ve danced and moved, we’ve fixed things meticulously, we’ve improvised.”

The role of the audience is highly important in all of the group’s works but, as the artistic director says, “it is an imaginative involvement”.

He adds: “I think often our work creates a situation that an audience is thrown into. You have to navigate it without really being given answers. You are brought into this very direct and vivid relationship to what’s happening but there isn’t a direct invitation to participate. It’s interactive on an imaginative level.

“It’s never a passive experience, it’s always about drawing people in and creating a complicated and enjoyable situation in real time.” Etchells believes Real Magic’s concept of determinism and questioning of free will strikes a chord with the public in the current political climate.

“I think the theme of people being trapped in something they can’t change is very pertinent right now in terms of global and UK politics. In terms of global warming, too. We wouldn’t have made this piece unless it had that context, even though there isn’t necessarily a direct link to those things in it.”

While this might all seem rather bleak, a sense of comic repetition pervades Real Magic. Etchells does not see why a theatre group can’t provide comedy while tackling heavy themes.

“The comedy is integral. There is a seriousness and harshness to the work but always this very bright, comical aspect too. I don’t think seriousness and comedy are separable in that sense – they go hand in hand, always.”

At the heart of the group is a desire to keep pushing theatre forward and examining various modes of performance. “It’s about us trying to figure out where we are and what we want to make,” says Etchells. “We want to keep it fresh for the audience and ourselves.”

Forced Entertainment: Real Magic, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Falmer, Brighton, Nov 10 and 11, 7.30pm, £12 (£8 for University of Sussex students), 01273 678822