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I'm blindfolded, my hands are bound and I'm being wheeled through a strange room. Someone strokes my nose, feeds me chocolate and whispers in my ear. Then my blindfold is removed and I'm face-to-face with a man. He asks me to smile, then blinks a single tear from his eye as I'm wheeled away.

 

This intimate experience was a personal performance staged by Ontroerend Goed, a Belgian troupe. The actor who indulged me in some transient courtship is one of the artists at the One-On-One Festival, now taking place at London's Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) from July 6th to the 18th.

 

One-on-one theatre describes a unique experience in which one audience member interacts with one artist. It's a genre pioneered by Dutch and Belgian artists over the past two decades, and has been steadily spreading ever since. Other performers at BAC include Hanneke Paauwe, a Dutch writer and theatre director now working in Belgium, and Adrian Howells, an experimental artist based in Glasgow. Howells explains he abandoned conventional theatre for more intimate work a decade ago because he was tired of performing to audiences who "didn't give a monkeys about me".

 

Ontroerend Goed formed in 1994 as a group of experimental youngsters who wanted to test the limits of the medium. They now boast a string of international awards, and have performed at the Edinburgh festival since 2007. It was there that the theatre scouts from BAC took note, and after two years of planning, one-on-one has arrived to test the reserve of Brits in London.

 

This festival features about 40 separate performances, each lasting no more than 20 minutes, which take place in separate rooms simultaneously throughout the labyrinthine arts centre. One ticket entitles guests to three theatrical performances. These experiences are selected at random, but it is possible to tailor your ticket by telling the curators your preferences: safe, curious, intimate, daring, etc. When I received my own random schedule (having forgone advance instructions), I suddenly enquired in a flash of panic, "I haven't got the naked one, have I?" (Howells's piece, called "The Pleasure of Being", involves him bathing a naked audience member, whom he then holds in a long embrace.) The reply, thankfully, was "no".

 

Intimacy is a big part of the one-on-one experience, but audience members are well looked after. As David Jubb, artistic director of the BAC, says, "the notion of trust is really important". There are ushers at every corner to smooth your way, a welcome source of aid amid the swirl of guests in varying states of disorientation, excitement or wonder. Everyone begins their journey at the same time. Two to three hours later, each person has a different story to tell.

 

My journey involved much reclining on beds and being blindfolded. In one performance, Sheila Ghelani's "Nurse Knows Best", I was invited to lie down, read magazines, sip some wine and relax as a nurse checked my pulse. In another, Melanie Wilson's "The View From Here", my eyes were bandaged as I lay on a hospital bed. A narrative delivered through headphones let me know that I had been blinded in an accident, and delivered me into the world of the patients' mind, contemplating a new world of darkness. In "Below" by Sarah Johns, I was led, blindfolded, into a room. The blindfold was removed and I stood next to her, inches between us, facing a mirror in candlelight. She sang, a capella, a beautiful pure song, and then led me to the door.

 

All of these blindfolds had a powerful, transporting effect. There is some pleasure in suspending one's sense of sight—the one we perhaps rely on the most—to alert one's senses of sound and touch. In all performances, my senses tingled with awareness. Even calm, therapeutic experiences elicited an adrenalin rush from my proximity to a stranger. As a lone audience member, I found myself feeling both more conscious and conscientious, more aware of myself as an essential ingredient in a theatrical transaction.

 

Jubb tells me that most people describe their experiences here as positive. They come away with feelings of joy, calm and curiosity, having been engaged in both body and mind. But for others, one-on-one theatre can be harrowing. Jubb has seen people moved to tears (in a cathartic way, he assures me). Given the sometimes surprising power of these interactions, the festival's curators have built in some downtime between performances. Ticket-holders can take a moment after an experience to reflect, have a drink at the bar or walk around the block.  

 

This theatrical model couldn't be more different from the typical experience of a West End show, whereby a room full of passive ticket-buyers take in the entertainment on a proscenium stage. The one-to-one ratio of performer to audience member, and the resources required to stage such a thing on a grand scale, makes this kind of theatre "prohibitively expensive", says Jubb. The BAC has made it work by having several performances running throughout the evening, which allows 180 curious customers through the door. Because there are so many possible journeys to take, Jubb hopes audience members will return for more one-on-one experiences and even bring their friends. After the first night of previews, I spotted guests queuing to snap up tickets for a return trip the following week.

 

The social effect of an evening of one-on-one theatre is interesting. Though each audience member is singled out to experience something unique and personal, the experience prompts much excited chatter. I found myself bursting with the need to confess my experience to the nearest person in a most un-British way. A macho-looking guy conceded to feeling some fear during Ontroerend Goed's performance, but he was grinning while he told me.

 

One-on-one theatre is still rather niche, but Jubb believes the popular response to this festival illustrates a growing appetite for it. Performers, like Howells, believe there is a need for human interaction in our wired-up world, "we spend huge volumes of time on our computers having virtual relationships, but technology is no substitute for a real encounter with another human being". Jubb reiterated this point to me, saying that theatre has a role to play in helping us disconnect with our cyber-selves and reconnect with each other. With this festival, BAC is bringing us one step closer.

 

(Lucy Farmer is assistant editor for the books and arts section of The Economist and a writer based in London.