‘DUST’s flyer is festooned with five-star ratings: deservedly so. It’s a gut-punch of a play, and Craig McCardle’s viscerally expressive performance stays with you like an emotional fat-lip. By turns humorous and heartbreaking, his performance flits from character to character, switching emotions in a heartbeat. Charlaina Thompson’s powerfully evocative script and direction pull no punches, either. Politics, we are told, is for the rich; survival is for the poor. But the looming spectre of the post-war politics that defined – and devastated – the North haunts every laboured, dust-choked breath of the play. As our protagonist moves through life – boxer, soldier, miner – we witness the highs and lows of his life down the pits, emblematic of so many who found themselves ground to dust.

Pleasance Courtyard, until 30 Aug.
tw rating 5/5 | [Andy Leask]