Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Bellringers / Suitcase Show

Bellringers, Roundabout @ Summerhall ★★★★ 

Dystopian climate-crisis dramas seemed ten-a-penny at the Fringe a few years back, but they’re far thinner on the ground in 2024. Which makes this deliciously elusive, oblique debut drama from Daisy Hall all the more intriguing, and valued.

Clement and Aspinall appear in monk-like cassocks in a church belfry, apparently summoned by a fast-approaching storm. It’s their job to ring the tower’s bells, perhaps to alert residents of their Oxfordshire village to the impending deluge, or even act as some kind of community-protecting talisman simply by their presence. But what might begin as a kind of off-kilter absurdist comedy between the two men soon leads into far more alarming territory as desperate glimpses of their broader circumstances are revealed.

And it’s Hall’s slow but inexorable drip-drip of details that’s one of Bellringers’ key strengths, each nugget of information adding to a picture of a world whose horizons have shrunk, whose population is dwindling, where fungi seem to sprout from all around, where fish rain from the sky, and where desperate superstition has replaced cool-headed knowledge and understanding. It’s all thoroughly plausible but never preachy in the assured pacing of Hall’s gradual exposition, and her vision of an England on the verge of collapse is conveyed very movingly through her two fearful but steadfast young characters. Paul Adefaya’s Aspinall is the more level-headed of the two, and also the one more likely to articulate the bleak realities of their situation in a performance that blends resilience with vulnerability. Luke Rollason’s Clement has a stronger line in nerdy wisecracks, but they cover a neediness and confusion that he only admits in the play’s closing moments.

Hall’s troubling portrait of a world riven by floods and lightning strikes is offset by the increasingly warmth and intimacy of her two protagonists’ relationship. And although it seems to swerve unexpectedly sideways during its closing section, not entrely convincingly, its conclusion is as bleak as it is inevitable. Director Jessica Lazar balances an increasing sense of impending menace with a naturalistic feeling of bantering wit between the two young men in a vivid, strongly felt staging, and David Doyle’s lighting acts as warning and signifier of violence from the skies – and also makes great play of the Roundabout tent’s wonderfully fluid, flexible lighting.

With its duo of protagonists spinning yarns while awaiting an impending arrival, Bellringers might be a Waiting for Godot for the climate-crisis era – though Hall never makes explicit reference. But while Beckett’s characters wait for something that never happens, Hall’s concluding catastrophe (if it is a catastrophe) is written in from the very start. 

• Until 26 August, then at the Hampstead Theatre 27 September-2 November

Suitcase Show, Summerhall ★★★ 

New Zealand company Trick of the Light have a second show at this year’s Fringe: The Bookbinder happens down the road from Summerhall, for a select audience in the intimate space of Tills Bookshop. Suitcase Show is bigger, but you’d still be advised to sit up close: a lot of its joy and effectiveness comes from tiny object work, shadows and lights, which may be somewhat lost on those at the back of Summerhall’s Old Lab.

The same could be said of the show itself. It’s a portmanteau collection of several miniature but separate tales, stitched together with the conceit of a mysterious arrival attempting to navigate airport security. His towering pile of luggage in fact contains stories and the intricate mechanisms to tell them, and their overarching theme only gradually emerges as the show develops.

Russian tyrants commune with bears; lovers dream of entry into the airport’s executive lounge; an astronaut looks back in time on their home planet. Suitcase Show’s tales are beautifully and artfully delivered, and there’s a magical feeling to performer Ralph McCubbin Howell’s (pictured above, by Romina Meneses) often spellbinding manipulations of turntables, tiny spotlights and fleeting shadows. Its big reveal, however, feels somewhat out of proportion, as though the show’s climax is happening on another scale entirely, and it might be a mistake, too, to take us back into the intimate suitcase world after such an explosion of activity and violence.

Nonetheless, it’s a beautifully conceived, expertly delivered creation that shows off McCubbin Howell’s captivating storytelling and skilful puppetry, as well as co-performer Hannah Smith’s droll portrayal of a bored security agent. Just stay in the front few rows for the full experience. 

• Until 25 August 

• The Edinburgh Fringe runs until 26 August 
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