Blinded By The Light – Traverse Theatre
‘Blinded By The Light’ is a gem of a play which celebrates a group of miners fighting to preserve their community, their jobs and their way of life. But at the same time it shows us a future where life has become unsustainable on our planet.
Playwright Sylvia Dow was teaching at Bo’Ness Academy in 1982 when the National Coal Board decided to close the town’s Kinneil Colliery on the grounds that it was no longer workable. This was disputed by the miners who believed there was a hundred years’ worth of coal left for them and their descendants to mine. Twelve of them (nicknamed ‘the dirty dozen’) decided to stage a ‘stay-doon’ in the deep pit tunnel under the River Forth. This was two years before the Miners’ Strike of 1984.
Two of the actors playing miners are from Bo’Ness and the town...