https://owenshipp.co.uk/ Stories, stages and scribbles from a UK creative. en Sun, 08 Nov 2026 14:47:29 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/curtain-down-phone-out-what-happens-when-they-scan-the-programme/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/curtain-down-phone-out-what-happens-when-they-scan-the-programme/ A QR code looks like the tidy little bow on a marketing plan. In practice, it is a doorway with a draught. Here is the audience journey from curtain-down curiosity to mailing-list sign-up, plus the consent, privacy and link-rot bits that get forgotten between the printer and the interval. Owen Shipp Performance Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:13:43 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/from-appliance-manual-to-actual-human-rewriting-my-artist-statement/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/from-appliance-manual-to-actual-human-rewriting-my-artist-statement/ My artist statement once described my work as 'interrogating the liminal space between materiality and memory'. A dishwasher manual had more warmth. Here are three drafts of the same statement, plus a repeatable method for sounding like a person rather than a product label. Owen Shipp Sketchbook Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:13:43 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/backstage-superstition-field-guide-whistling-lucky-socks/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/backstage-superstition-field-guide-whistling-lucky-socks/ Why do we still refuse to say the Scottish play in 2026? A tour of the small rituals that cluster around UK dressing rooms — where they came from, which ones actually do something useful, and the one habit a Carlisle am-dram society swears by. Owen Shipp Sketchbook Sun, 08 Nov 2026 09:13:38 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/your-name-is-the-shop-sign-personal-site-costs/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/your-name-is-the-shop-sign-personal-site-costs/ Running owenshipp.co.uk means every email, invoice and awkward question arrives addressed to me personally. Three years in, here's what that intimacy actually costs — in time, in boundaries, and in the odd Sunday afternoon spent rewriting an About page at 11pm. Owen Shipp Performance Sun, 08 Nov 2026 09:13:38 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/paper-trails-bus-stop-reading-town-noticeboards/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/paper-trails-bus-stop-reading-town-noticeboards/ A notebook-and-camera wander through the lamppost flyers and church-hall posters that make up a town's creative life. What gets promoted, what gets overlooked, and what a soggy A5 sheet can teach anyone publicising a small show in 2026. Owen Shipp Sketchbook Sun, 08 Nov 2026 05:17:36 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/gaffer-tape-good-intentions-prop-kit-survives-road/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/gaffer-tape-good-intentions-prop-kit-survives-road/ A working inventory of the charity-shop lamps, cardboard walls and borrowed curtains that actually make it through a small UK tour. Some of it collapses by the second night. The rest earns its place in the hallway. Owen Shipp Performance Sun, 08 Nov 2026 05:17:36 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/playing-to-the-pavement-shopfront-theatre-diary/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/playing-to-the-pavement-shopfront-theatre-diary/ This year I helped turn an empty retail unit on a UK high street into a tiny theatre for a 2026 show. Here is what the permissions, the clip lights, the curious shoppers and the awkward silences taught me about making performance visible. Owen Shipp Performance Sun, 08 Nov 2026 01:16:32 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/a-year-of-small-stubborn-making-ten-habits/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/a-year-of-small-stubborn-making-ten-habits/ I spent 2026 trying to keep writing, drawing and performing alive around a day job, and the answer was not a five a.m. routine. It was ten small, low-drama habits, including a single envelope for every rejection. Owen Shipp Sketchbook Sun, 08 Nov 2026 01:16:32 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/parish-rooms-pay-what-you-can-village-hall-tour/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/parish-rooms-pay-what-you-can-village-hall-tour/ I've spent this year loading a one-person show into parish rooms with badminton lines on the floor and a kettle that takes eleven minutes to boil. Here's why village halls have quietly become the most interesting rooms in the country, plus a practical checklist for anyone thinking of joining me. Owen Shipp Performance Sat, 07 Nov 2026 21:20:33 GMT https://owenshipp.co.uk/seven-scribbles-sketchbook-lessons/ https://owenshipp.co.uk/seven-scribbles-sketchbook-lessons/ My sketchbook is not a portfolio. It's a workshop floor — coffee rings, crossed-out ideas, half a set design and one very rude note to myself. Here are seven pages that changed how I make work, in the least tidy way possible. Owen Shipp Sketchbook Sat, 07 Nov 2026 21:20:33 GMT