MASH UP 2026: CREATIVE CALL OUT

This summer we’re assembling a new crew of Oldham creatives to turn the sounds of their own lives into live performance. We were invited to put together a proposal for MASHUP; and have come up with the idea to ask people to become ‘sonic diarists’. By recording the sounds of their own “firsts” on their phones: a first bus alone, a first heartbreak, a first protest, or a first goodbye. Across the week, they’ll experiment with acting, spoken word, movement, music and devising. They’ll turn everyday sounds (buses, streets, silences, hums and voices) into a live piece we are calling a Living Playback: text and sound handed back to the room, together. No experience is needed, just a story worth telling and the nerve to tell it.

This matters for Oldham because the creative ideas are built entirely from this town’s own sounds and stories, and every story here deserves a stage, not a footnote. We want young people in this borough to see themselves as the ones making the culture, as well as watching it.

We met through OCT’s artist development programme Bloom earlier this year. This project will be the first time we will have collaborated together; it lets us blend our creative worlds. Lisa with her background in acting, scriptwriting, directing, and performer development, while Segun offers energy as a performer and producer in comedy, musical performance, and directing. We want to be taking the exact same creative risks in that room that we are asking our group to take.

It feels vital for us as creatives living and working here to put energy into growing this beautiful creative network – here in Oldham. The Coliseum’s mantra ‘Oldham Born World Bound’ chimes. We’re also excited by how much we will learn from one another as a group through this process – drawing on each other’s strengths, expanding our own practices, and discovering new ways of making contemporary performance work together. In week one, both Lisa and Segun will both participate alongside the group sharing our own ‘firsts’ material, making our own field recordings, and placing our work-in-progress alongside theirs. We won’t ask all artists to take any creative risk we haven’t taken ourselves first. We are energised by the opportunity to share that creative exchange with younger artists, and to model genuine curiosity and artistic risk-taking not as a value we talk about, but as something we can do together.

Click here to get involved.

Lisa Whiteside

My professional work as an actor and scriptwriter, including professional experience across theatre and screen (Brassic, Coronation Street, regular commercial and V/O work) has given me a strong understanding of the creative process from both an artistic and industry perspective. More recently working with mentors such as Charlotte Bennett from Paines Plough and TV Script writer Julie Jones (Coronation Street) has expanded these creative and storytelling skills even further. Alongside this, I have extensive experience planning, shaping and leading creative projects through my work as an acting coach/ lecturer and Director at Pendleton School of Theatre and the University of Salford, as well as through running my own classes at ACT on Oldham. Together, these strands of my practice mean Segun and I can lead this process as supportive role models, creating a space that feels welcoming, artistically ambitious and inspiring for young creatives to step into, take creative risks and grow in confidence.

Segun Ogundipe

My professional work as a multidisciplinary actor, award-winning theatre maker, and comedian over the years has centred on staging dynamic human experiences internationally. Recently, I lent my voice as the West African character in the major interactive game 007: First Light with Monilare. Backed by Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant, my current practice focusses on breaking boundaries in live performance and testing out fresh, experimental frameworks on stage with mentorship from Matthew Xia and Jimmy Fairhurst. Through years of performing and touring stand-up comedy, running weekly creative comedy labs to mentor emerging voices, and collaborating with global bodies like the British Council, I have developed a deep practical understanding of timing, text-rhythm, and collaborative leadership. My artistic journey in Oldham includes The Bloom Programme residency where I was mentored by Testament. Together, Lisa and I bring complementary practices: her expertise in scripted performance and actor development, my background in live text, rhythm, and experimental frameworks, and a shared belief that the best way to build a room full of risk-takers is to be one yourself.