Fibres (14+)
Directed by Jemima Levick
Citizens Theatre Glasgow

IT IS the outright identification with working women that makes Francis Poet’s outstanding play Fibres so effective.

In the film Maureen Carr reprises her part as the central character Beanie who has been poisoned with asbestos from washing her husband’s clothes.

“No-one wanted my brain,” she says after a lifetime of working with her hands, but it is through her auto-didact’s brain that we understand not just what asbestos does to the body, but how the whole syndrome fits into capitalist oppression.

Her dying husband may be fatalistic but she remains rational, even as a remembered voice after her own death, in the dreams of her grieving daughter. “Just you make our deaths cost them,” she insists softly.

The fibres are the poison of asbestos, but also the threads of vulnerable connection between husband and wife, parent and child, woman and lover to be.

This inspired dramatic structure is tempered by a language that weaves poetic images, gossamer-light, through a story that is not just a deeply angry treatment of social injustice, but a tender portrayal of real people.”

This is an abridged version of the Morning Star review of Fibres published on October 24, 2019, which can be read here: mstar.link/Fibres.

Fibres premieres on November 25 at 7pm. Free but must be booked in advance.

Your confirmation email will include a link to view the film. To book visit Fibres: www.citz.co.uk