Blinded By The Light

The Barony Players invited me to the production of this play which was originally performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 11 years ago. It is now on tour and the Barony Theatre venue was staging its first performance of the tour. The play concerns a true event in December 1982 of twelve miners who worked at the Kinneil Colliery, Bo’ness and who held a ‘stay doon’ in the tunnel that ran from Bo’ness under the River Forth to Valleyfield in protest at the proposed closure of the colliery. Convinced their union would support them, the miners endured darkness, isolation, the inhalation of coal dust, poor diet and the friction of being together. In the end the union did not support them and the pit was closed. The writer Sylvia Dow, a long time member and producer of Bo’ness AOS, wanted to record this forgotten episode of mining history and at the same time took a look at the future by imagining alongside two young folk forced to live in the tunnel because of failure to prevent drastic climate change. As a Bo’nessian, I was intrigued and moved by the portrayal of this event and impressed by the actors’ grit, by the set with its barrel like floor imitating the pit, and by the sudden immersion of us all into darkness before we all saw the light, both actually and metaphorically. This is a powerful and well written drama and it was so appropriate that its new production started off its tour of Central Scotland venues in Bo’ness where it all took place.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.