Stephen Lightbown is a Bristol based wheelchair-user, poet and storyteller whose work interrogates the lived experience of applying for benefit and navigating the UK welfare system. In A Life With PIP, he turns his own story of applying for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) into theatre—sharp, honest, evocative and full of humour, frustration and humanity.
We asked Stephen to give us an insight into why he has brought his story back to the stage again, and how it feels to be performing at TFT in his home city this February.
“Disability benefits have been part of my life for over 30 years, ever since my accident. In that time, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked to justify my disability, to explain it, measure it, and prove that I am “disabled enough” to deserve financial support. Even more countless are the days filled with anxiety — waiting, worrying, and wondering whether the system will decide that my life is valid this time around.
That experience is why I wrote A Life With PIP. The performance offers an insight into what it actually feels like to apply for disability benefits, and how the system itself often seems designed to make people fail. It’s not just about paperwork or assessments; it’s about the emotional toll, the constant scrutiny, and the quiet erosion of dignity that comes with having to repeatedly defend your existence.
I wanted to show that this process is about far more than headlines and political speeches about benefit fraud. It’s about people — real people — and the real, lasting impact these systems have on their lives.
When the Labour government was elected, I genuinely didn’t think I would need to perform this play again. I hoped the story had become less urgent, less necessary. But when proposed changes to Personal Independence Payments were outlined last summer, the relevance of A Life With PIP became painfully clear once more. Suddenly, the script felt as current and necessary as ever.
Having lived in Bristol for the past ten years, and as a long-time attendee of the Tobacco Factory Theatre, I feel deeply honoured to be performing A Life With PIP again in the city I now call home. This performance carries particular weight. It will take place two weeks after the 30th anniversary of my accident, and just two days before I undergo shoulder surgery — surgery made necessary by decades of pushing my wheelchair.
Revisiting the material during rehearsals has been raw and emotional. Reading these words again and again has brought so much back to the surface, and I hope that rawness finds its way into the performance itself.
It’s an honour to be sharing this work again. My hope is that it won’t be a one-off — that these words will continue to be heard, and that this story will keep being told, for as long as it needs to be.”
Posted on 05 February 2026
