“One of the UK's most consistently interesting & creatively absorbing performers”

BRDCST Curator: Keeley Forsyth

It was curator Colin Stetson who, during BRDCST 2025, brought our attention to British actress and performer Keeley Forsyth (UK). After a long career in film and television, she debuted stunningly in 2020 with Debris. Her voice tore our soul into pieces. “A female Scott Walker!” someone rightly exclaimed. Comparisons with Nico, Nick Cave, Beth Gibbons (Portishead), David Sylvian, ANOHNI and Aldous Harding were legion.

She’s collaborated with artists such as Colin Stetson, Teho Teardo, Ben Frost and Yann Tiersen. Forsyth is equally compelling live: “This is a complete show, as rooted in contemporary dance as it is in a rock concert. It is as perfect a match of form and function in the realm of musical performance as something like David Byrne’s American Utopia on Broadway,” according to In Spite Magazine.

She further refined her baritone voice on her third album The Hollow (2024), earning rave reviews. “Transfixing, beautifully bleak”, according to Uncut. The Quietus wrote: “What a bloody phenomenal album.” And finally, Mojo: “Intimate and intense, operatic and guttural, Forsyth paints her world's rugged beauty in tones that could stop listeners dead.”

For BRDCST, she will perform an expanded version of her recent shows. “A distillation of that which is essential: only voice and keys” as can also be heard on the EP Hand To Mouth. Enter: the celebrated French author Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, who will compose a specially commissioned text as the spoken word narrative to this show, one which lies at the intersection of theatre, opera and text. (Those wanting to further explore the work of Jean-Baptiste Del Amo can read more here.)