Writer: Daisy Hall
Director: Jessica Lazar
Nominated for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, Daisy Hall’s debut play, Bellringers, imagines a near-future where the lines between living and mere survival are sharply drawn.
We join Clement (Luke Rollason) and Aspinall (Paul Adeyefa) as they climb up into the belfry of their village church. Climate change has reshaped the map of Europe; violent thunderstorms and torrential rain batter the UK. Clutching at meanings to explain the phenomena, people look to religion and superstition. Almanacs are consulted as eagerly as Bibles. The signs are there: Aspinall has found two apples in a nearby orchard, and Clement devours his as a rich, rare treat.
In this religious age, it is believed that the act of bellringing in itself offers protection. An ancient belief decrees that the peal of bells dissipates thunder and lightning. However, the act of ringing large metallic bells during a thunderstorm proves to be a hazardous undertaking. Aspinall has already lost his godmother in this way. The bellringers refer to it as being “frazzled”. It is by no means guaranteed that Clement and Aspinall will make it through the night.
Daisy Hall’s blend of comedy and drama drip-feeds the reality and horror of living in the later stages of climate crisis. Her use of silence is particularly effective: the pauses between the dialogue allow us time to digest what is – and isn’t – being said. The relationship between Clement and Aspinall is portrayed with depth and sensitivity by Adeyefa and Rollason; the more devout Aspinall tries to counter Clement’s nervy atheism. Their personalities spark off each other: Aspinall’s optimism neatly dovetails Clement’s propensity to mentally doomscroll. Hall notes how much more energy it takes for Aspinall to remain spiritually buoyant. Trying to come to terms with the end of the world, as Clement says, is easier said than done. The price this generation is paying is extraordinarily unfair.
The play hinges on the success of the central relationship, and Adeyefa and Rollason work beautifully together: this is a rhythm between them that makes the friendship that much more believable. Rollason’s wide-eyed disbelief feels more emotionally resonant to a contemporary audience, but Hall is careful to detail the emotional landscape in which her characters now live. There has been, perhaps too late, a return to simpler ideas: communal living, civic duty. The individual has been subsumed for a collective, greater good. Again, Hall’s play questions what impact this actually has in the face of catastrophic weather patterns. The bellringing, the footie games on the Common. It all feels a bit reminiscent of arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Hall leaves us to consider, and not comfortably, what we would do when faced with this situation. What Bellringers gets across most clearly is the lack of definition and direction: there are no right answers, no obvious moves. There is a helplessness that Hall doesn’t mock or scorn: this humanity is something you don’t often see in dystopian narratives. It is this final note of compassion that, ultimately, offers a way forward.
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The Reviews Hub Score
A thoughtful take on the dystopian narrative
