Fresh from its run at Hampstead Theatre’s Downstairs, Bellringers is available to stream at Original Online
“I have a wide peripheral”
Daisy Hall’s Bellringers finished its run at Hampstead Theatre’s Downstairs last month but a specially filmed version has now been released on Original Theatre’s streaming platform Original Online, ahead of the film’s general release from Friday 27 December at 5pm. The show had a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival as well as being shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Playwriting.
The play asks the question what would you do if the apocalypse were fast approaching. For Aspinall and Clement, the answer is to retreat to the steeple of a church in rural Oxfordshire as superstition dictates that the storm can be appeased by the perfect peal. Neither are turning to religion at this moment of crisis but nor are they particularly convinced that this is any better. Still, what else to do?
Hall’s writing is cleverly constructed as it essentially is a time-killing conversation between two people waiting for…well, who knows what. But their chat isn’t merely filler, it’s a wide-ranging existential reflection on the human experience as they consider past, present and future, looking at the contextualisation and rationalisation of all sorts of strange events which now make sense, now the end might be near.
As such, there’s a timeliness to Hall’s writing as location after location reels from increasingly common extreme weather events. And Jessica Lazar’s production toys with our expectations as the two gents first arrive in cassocks, suggesting we could be at any time, though it soon becomes clear when we are. Paul Adeyela’s Aspinall and Luke Rollason’s Clement pair up beautifully too, locating real emotion in this time of peril as they face up to the question if anything can truly be done.
