In first year of university I played Tulip in Simon Armitage’s Eclipse as a part of National Theatre’s Connections annual festival. A year later, the cast decided to go for drinks and see the new company’s show. During drinks some of the current students asked the alumni and rest of the cast about advice on module choices. Not completely sold on my decisions, I asked Martyn Horner-Glistner about his solo performance.

Influenced by Marina Abramovic, durational performances, and the use of technology, Martyn created an hour long autobiographical piece investigating the inner workings of his mind. Martyn used the time in his performance as a self-exploration and self-lead therapy session.

Having only two viewing points: an above window and a camera feed in a separate room, Martyn was able to symbolically change the space to represent his mind, with himself inside it, physically shutting out the audience. But still being able to react to messages and support, involving anyone and everyone, through social media.

Martyn used different sized images to represent the problems in his life and how big they were. He used these to recollect memories and explained how he needed to deal with each problem, either placing them in the bin (letting them go from his mind) or keeping them. However, he had created a safe space in the centre of the room to retreat to if he had to have a mental and physical breather.

Recommending everyone to try this process, Martyn said he found this experience exhausting but in turn extremely liberating.

So that’s what I intend to, try the process, but in my own way.