Edinburgh Fringe 2026
DUST
Yellow Brick
Genre: Biography, New Writing, Solo Performance, Storytelling
Venue: Bunker One at The Pleasance Courtyard
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Wakefield born, Craig McArdle’s performance is a metaphor for the life story he relates in this monologue of an English working man’s struggle for existence. He is both emotionally and physically spent by the end. With absolute mastery of his storytelling craft, he pours every ounce of himself into this personal tale written by Charlaina Thompson and her grandfather’s diaries. Emotional and extraordinary in every respect.
Review
A tough Yorkshire upbringing shows no leniency, with punishment meted out by the fists of father and brothers alike. It wasn’t for lack of love though, but because of it; life is hard and violent and only those who learn how to fight can survive. This start in life equips him well in his first role as a boxer but this period is short lived when he is conscripted for National Service. He leaves home and makes an ugly friend, a “brother in arms”. His first brush with death comes when he narrowly avoids being sent for active service in Korea, his “brother” and fellow soldier is not so lucky. On his return he meets and falls in love with Dot. Even their courtship is a battle, not with each other, but the keeping her from other suitors. Marriage and three children quickly follow in a period of relative happiness but a romantic escape to Bristol to “rekindle their nuptials” leads to his next brush with the reaper after the hotel catches fire and they escape down a ladder into the night. After being made redundant he is forced to work down the mine “in the dark” so his family can “enjoy the light”. The dust affects his lungs and he is laid off from work with bronchitis and he escapes death one more time, when he is not one of the seven men killed in a colliery disaster.
The script is fast paced, the writer works her audience hard to make them keep up, the lines darting around and slippery. Concentrate, concentrate. The choice of venue for the show, namely the bunker at the Pleasance is dark, sweaty, cramped, a little bit unpleasant and absolutely perfect for a tale set in a mine. The lighting and sound cues move us between our central character’s outward persona and his inner self, haunted and terrified. They take us down the mine in the tragedy with the flashing headtorches and to the funeral of the lost after. There are several notable small touches such and the clunk of the pint glass hitting the bar as McArdle sets it down after drinking.
However this majesty of this piece is McArdle’s ability to conjure other people from the story to exist with him in the room, a cast of one becomes a cast of many. The objects he moves in his hands so deftly they morph between an Officer’s swagger stick, a soldier’s gun and a chair. At times he holds nothing at all, but we can see the pint glass, the cigarette, even the smoke itself. There are a few tender moments, small chuckles here and there, but not many, the story is tough because life is tough and in the retelling there is no let up in the violence, the aggression, or the constant battle with adversity. No reprieve for the working man in England. The audience is in tears at the end, exhausted by it all, just wishing it would stop and simultaneously rebooking to watch the whole thing again.
