STRESS takes centre stage in a one-woman show which comes to Glasgow next month. Taking its title from a term meaning a material’s breaking point, Tensile Strength (or How To Survive At Your Wits End) aims to encourage audiences to think about their relationship to stress and how to better deal with it when it begins to affect our health.

Holly Gallagher, a young writer and performer from Teesside, took inspiration from her own life for the show, as well as interviews with a range of people online and in person at venues across the north east of England.

In Tensile Strength, upon which she received mentorship by top Scots playwright Kieran Hurley, Gallagher weaves the stories of three characters which developed from the verbatim material.

“There’s a He, a She and a They,” says Gallagher, an associate artist at ARC Stockton Arts Centre. “The She character is closest to me, a recent graduate who is struggling to find work and feeling like she’s not achieving enough. She’s really worried about money and the extra pressures you may have if you don’t come from a wealthy family. University sold you the idea that you would be really successful if you went there, but now the reality is that you still need to work really hard, even to find work.

“She goes through the flipside of all that: she can’t relax, she can’t find a work-life balance and she is quite angry. She has all these expectations and feels she isn’t meeting them, that she’s letting people down.”

Gallagher’s They character has recently come out of a long-term relationship and is beset with constant worries and indecision. He, meanwhile, is a new dad.

“He’s overwhelmed: he’s struggling to be a good dad, a good support to his wife, to go to work and try to look after himself too,” says Gallagher.

The set of Tensile Strength is strewn with buckets. Gallagher says it's a reference to a technique used in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as a metaphor for understanding and managing stress.

Though her initial ambition of writing a “cure-all show for stress” may be impossible, Gallagher says there’s a definite therapeutic aim to Tensile Strength.

After the March 21 performance, she’ll explore the topics further with the audience at a post-show discussion.

“I wrote this show because I’m a stressed person, and it seems lots of other people are too,” she says. “Hopefully the characters feel relateable, that there is something tangible that everyone in the audience can identify with.”

She adds: “One of the most rewarding audience responses I’ve had to the show so far was in a feedback form that asked: ‘How did the show make you feel?’ and the audience member’s response was: ‘Normal’.”

March 20 to 22, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, 8pm, £11, £8.50 concs. Tel: 0141 552 4267. www.tron.co.uk