The notion of being trapped in a confined space in the dark has had a great appeal to American writers ever since Edgar Allan Poe.

In the 1940s, T S Eliot used the image of passengers stuck in a stationary underground train in his poem Four Quartets. Forty years later Michael Sloan’s stage play Underground had a brief run at London's Prince of Wales Theatre.

Sloan, better known as a writer of television series – Baywatch, Kung Fu, The Equaliser, Quincy, McCloud, Alfred Hitchcock Presents – wanted to explore the darker recesses of the human psyche by dramatising the reactions of 12 characters stuck on a London Underground train.

At first the passengers groan in disbelief, sigh and try not to think about the obvious.

Then Sloan sketches out their characters as ice-breaking conversations break out, trust is established and alliances are formed and broken as the carriage becomes warmer and airless. Is this event merely bad luck or is there something more sinister behind it?

Bingley Little Theatre’s production will take you on a journey, but this is no roller-coaster ride.

The play is directed by Abbe Robinson, director of short films such as Private Life. As a teenager she performed at Bingley Arts Centre. “The idea of directing a tense and claustrophobic thriller, with its twists and turns and revelations, really appealed to me,” she says.

Underground is on at Bingley Arts Centre until Saturday. For tickets ring (01274) 432000.