The Birmingham Plastics Network and Stan’s Cafe use tabletop drama to explore plastics and their degrees of sustainability.
This spring, the Birmingham Plastics Network (BPN) partnered with acclaimed theatre company Stan’s Cafe to tour The Many Lives of PET #1, a thought-provoking tabletop drama about our relationship with plastic. The production was developed by Dr Kit Windows Yule with support from the Royal Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Lenovo, and forms part of a wider science communication initiative linked to the BPN Plastics Policy Commission. Its goal: to open up public dialogue around plastic use, value, and disposal, and share emerging policy recommendations through creative engagement.
Devised and directed by Stan’s Cafe and inspired by the University of Birmingham Plastics Network Policy Commission, PET #1 is a small-scale, highly imaginative show performed atop a table using a cast of plastic bottle puppet characters. Blending science, storytelling, and puppetry, it invited audiences to follow the journeys and transformations of plastic in everyday life - from factory to shop to recycling bin and beyond. Its format designed to be flexible, portable, and intimate, allowing audiences to engage up close and personally with the issues.
From March to April 2025, the show visited 13 community venues across Birmingham, including Stirchley Baths, Sector 57, The Exchange, Northfield Library, and several community centres, as well as three local secondary schools. Across these stops, PET #1 reached more than 1,900 people: 452 members of the public and an estimated 1,540 students.
Comments described the show as “beautiful,” “surprisingly moving,” “simple but profound,” and “a brilliant way to think differently about plastic.”
As part of BPN’s broader commitment to interdisciplinary and publicly accessible research, this project exemplifies how academic knowledge and policy thinking can be communicated beyond the academic community. It also highlights the role of the arts in making complex environmental issues more relatable, emotionally resonant, and inclusive.
The Many Lives of PET #1 will return later this summer at the Greenbelt Festival, offering another opportunity for audiences to reflect on the hidden lives of the plastic objects all around us.
If you’re interested in hosting the show or continuing the conversation, please get in touch with the Birmingham Plastics Network.
Professor of Digital Particle Technology
Kit Windows-Yule is a Professor of Digital Particle Technology in the School of Chemical Engineering, working jointly with the School of Physics and Astronomy's Positron Imaging Centre.
