A solo theatre piece telling the true story of a survivor of the 1973 Lofthouse Colliery disaster, near Wakefield, one of the most devastating mining tragedies in Northern England, is heading to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August.
DUST, from Yellow Brick Theatre Company, follows the final, fragmented memories of an elderly man in a hospital ward as he looks back on a life shaped by the working-class struggle in Yorkshire. The story moves between his present, medicated delirium and his past as a boxer, a boilermaker, a soldier and a miner, guided by his own inherited moral code, the “10 Northern Commandments”, as he tries to make sense of a life defined by hardship.
The play is based on true accounts of survivors of the Lofthouse Colliery disaster, which happened on 21 March 1973 when a newly excavated coalface broke into an abandoned, flooded mineshaft near Wakefield. Seven miners were trapped below; only one body was ever recovered, despite a six-day rescue operation.
The story is personal for performer Craig McArdle, whose own grandfather survived the disaster. Craig trained at Wakefield College and Leeds Metropolitan University before going on to win the Holden Street Theatres’ Edinburgh Fringe Award in 2009, and has since worked across theatre, film, opera and television, most recently appearing in Netflix’s The Royal Hotel.
He said: “It has been an honour to work on this play, and I hope that we have done justice to the memory of my grandad, the Lofthouse Colliery miners, their families and community.”
Writer and director Charlaina Thompson, who was Yorkshire-bred in a mining family before relocating to Australia, said the show was written as a tribute to her roots: “DUST and this body of work was written for my ancestors, to honour the memory of my hometown and celebrate the spirit, warmth and resilience of the north. The plays are fragments of my own memories, growing up in a working-class town, and the Commandments are in my DNA.”
DUST is the first instalment in a planned trilogy of new work from Thompson exploring familial love, generational trauma and working-class life, and previously won the 2025 Adelaide Fringe inSPACE Award for Best Original Work by a South Australian Artist. The show has already picked up a four-star review from The List, who called it “a fascinating slice of history that deserves to be seen.”
DUST plays at Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker One, from 5–30 August (not 12, 18 or 25), 14:10–15:05.
