Frances Poet on tackling the asbestos tragedy in her new play Fibres

Mesothelioma – for those lucky enough never to have encountered it – is a particularly severe form of lung cancer, and invariably fatal. It kills seven people a day in the UK alone; and 80 per cent of those deaths are known to be related to exposure to fibres of asbestos, the insulating and fireproofing material that was widely used in construction and other industries for over a century, from the 1850s onwards. A final complete ban on the import and use of asbestos became law in the UK in 1999; but because mesothelioma can take anything between 20 and 50 years to develop, cases are still being diagnosed every day, with men who worked in construction – and related trades like shipbuilding – particularly likely to be affected.