I do like going to the cinema once in a while. It's social, the screen is big and it's a good excuse to gobble down a bucket of popcorn (before the film has even started). But most of the time I just want to watch a film alone and not worry about me laughing, crying or shouting. Or clapping if that's what I feel like. To not mind others. To do the forbidden and allow myself to be a wimp and turn on the water works or be so fucking terrified I won't be able to sleep without the lights on. Those reactions are a bit taboo in public (punishable by sideway glances and eye rolling).

I like to have live performances to myself in that same way some times, like you get in one-on-one performances, so I can allow those (private) reactions to surface. Yes I feel vulnerable, it's real life and so it's a real relationship between the performer and I, and it can get awkward because they're in character and you're not. But that's what's so interesting. It's like a form of lapdance, and it creates a certain energy and tension (think of the strong reactions to Marina Abramovich's The Artist Is Present), which completely transforms the experience and is worth every single penny.

If you're interested in joining a debate on the subject, you might be interested in Thursday's (1 July) event The Epic and the Intimate at the ICA at 3.30pm, £5 / £4 ICA Members plus + £1.20 booking fee per ticket in advance.

Audiences are perhaps becoming suspicious of the formality of traditional theatre: the silent watching, the inability to interact with what is on stage, the expected applause at the end. Intimate or immersive work seems by contrast to allow the audience to own and edit the narrative, to create an experience, a journey, rather than an event.

However such intimate theatre is asking the audience to be quite vulnerable, to risk potential embarrassment or, by virtue of making the 'wrong' choices, an unfulfilling experience; is there a danger that will limit the audience to the moneyed and confident? Furthermore, as the spectre of public funding cuts looms, is this type of work financially sustainable; is it value for the public’s money?