A play about an impending apocalypse set against climate change and the will of God is what we have in Daisy Hall’s play, Bellringers, a two-hander performed at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs earlier this year.
Clement (Luke Rollason) and Aspinall (Paul Adeyefa) are survivors of the storms, floods, fires and lightning strikes that have plagued their town and those adjacent to it.
Each time, many people die and are replaced almost without fuss, regret, or mourning.
The two men are in the church tower, ready to ring the bells and warn the town when the storm hits. Few have survived this task, but we never find out why they are doing it. Chosen, or volunteered?
Bellringers has an air of black comedy about it, but it takes itself very seriously, whether enumerating the dead and the cause of their dispatch, or musing on what might happen were they to survive.
Stage director Jessica Lazar offers a sense of claustrophobic gloom and tension, as we wait for the inevitable.
What these villages with their vaguely Saxon names have done to deserve obliteration isn’t clear, but the fear is palpable.
The camera in this digital version gets in close, a conspirator and fellow bellringer, almost, waiting and watching. Designer Natalie Johnson’s belfry is lit beautifully by David Doyle.
Film director Tristan McShepherd offers the sleek Original touch and high production values to offer a strong intimacy to the armchair viewer. The two performances in Bellringers are excellent.
Hall has a strong and intriguing writing style, and if audiences do the work it may be possible to associate this folk fable with current issues affecting our climate.
Perhaps our fish stay in the water, and mushrooms stay off our skin, but these could be metaphors for something else.
****
Bellringers is available to view on Original Theatre for members, with a full release on 27 Dec – details here.
Image credit: Alex Brenner