I am not a performer. I have trained in writing for theater and directing for theater. But I've never trained as a performer. For my most recent work a performance-lecture, Thinking Bigly...

...It turns out. That I am the performer. As typically part of a performance lecture is that you play yourself or a version of yourself. 

Perhaps not strangely. I am quite comfortable being me. I am quite OK at it.

Performing has taught me a few things. Most of which I am still dwelling upon. Many of us won’t put ourselves in a position to perform or speak in front of hundreds, but I think it’s a useful learning.

Now having been involved in theatre making in the writing part and the directing part and the audience part and now the performer part. I did have one observation. About the power of silence. And the power of focus. 

In many a play a or any live performance 

There are often points of silence. Or pauses. Or in particular long pauses. Famously Pinter has these pauses, which practitioners have dubbed “Pinter pauses” a type of pregnant pause so long and full of meaning. 

Sitting as an audience member and being enveloped in a pregnant pause can be both an awkward and exhilarating experience. This communal silence - this waiting for the performer to say... Or do... Some action. 

As a director, I've noted these audience reactions. When to orchestrate it extend it in the text. In the rhythm of a play. And Similarly when writing a piece the power of when to use these pauses. Mostly sparingly. 

Recently as a performer,  I have come to observe the pauses on the other side of the fourth wall. There are no big or pregnant pauses in Thinking Bigly. However, there are mini-pausues between images, between slides between arguments being made. 

In my most recent performance, there was a moment when one mini-pause stretched slightly longer in a proper pause.

In that pause. I could see and feel those same sensations that I felt as an audience. 200 people. In communal silence. In my silence waiting. Waiting. For what I would say or do next. 

I recall. The way Barack Obama speaks. Peppered with pauses or moments filled with an audience sitting in those silences. 

He is a speaker, who has excised all the uuummms and aaaahs of speech and filled them with these pauses instead. 

Pretty effectively if you ask me. 

I've had to work hard to excise those umms. Trained performers  have no unintentional uuuums in their speeches. 

So in the moment where I was performing and I was standing in this small silence, which 200 people were also sitting in. But I was the one who had to make the next move the next sound. The next point. 

It was its own kind of exhilaration  and awkwardness and power being on the other side of this silence. About to make a call to action for the senior management of a university to commit to a sustainability plan. 

I could see how some people might get carried away with their silence. 

The power of it. Holding people in it. 

But I found it slightly daunting. Keeping everybody waiting. Even if it did make the performance more effective. 

Seeing the silence - from the other side - was an interesting experience of being a performer. 

I’m also glad to report that the audience seemed pretty captivated through out.

If you'd like to know more about my interactive sustainability show thinking Bigly, click here next public performance on March 26 in London. 

More information on my micro grants program: Where I'm giving away £1K awards to individuals looking to make a positive impact click here.