Theatre event takes aim at unfair welfare

An ambitious community theatre project aims to tackle the problems of the Personal Independent Payments (PIPs)

These are currently undergoing a major government overhaul to reduce the UK’s benefit bill by tightening eligibility, which could mean hundreds of thousands of people lose their entitlement.

The Legislative Theatre project is inviting the public to help reshape the PIP system by working through lived experiences of disability assessments.

The ‘Reimagining Disability Assessment’ has been developed by Lincoln Against Poverty and the Lincoln Poverty Truth Commission and will be held at the Engine Shed on June 4. 

It will be led by Rachel Griffiths, who specialises in using participatory theatre to bring about social change – in this case the LocalMotion Lincoln-backed project will be inviting audiences to become ‘spect-actors’ to interrupt and reshape scenes based on PIP assessments.

“We believe that something truly amazing can come from this – perhaps even a change in UK policy,” said Tinashe Chipawe of the project team.

“We don’t know what people will come up with, but their experience may highlight something that has not been thought about before and spark ideas that lead to solutions.”

Fellow team member Amy Walsh added the initiative was a response to concerns that the current system is long, confusing and inconsistent and organisers had written to Sir Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability outlining fears about the system. They stated it was ‘holding communities back, pushing people into hardship and poor mental health’.

Hello Lincoln will be following the project’s progress over the coming weeks so keep checking these pages.

If you would like to be involved in the project see https://localmotion.org.uk/legislative-theatre-redesigning-the-pip-system-to-work-for-everyone-event-lincoln/

Picture above shows Lincoln Against Poverty’s last event at the Engine Shed.

Below - Amy Walsh and Tinashe Chipawe hope the project can shape real change for PIP recipients.