Interview: Daisy Hall, Bellringers

7 Jun

Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024 we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with writer and playwright Daisy Hall about the piece Bellringers.

1. Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far.

I’m a writer and playwright living in Cardiff. Growing up I dreamt of writing children’s books and, later, very sadnovels or radio sitcoms. Somewhere along the line I’ve ended up writing plays, which I love. Bellringers is my firstfull length play to beproduced.

**2.What is Bellringers about?**

t’s about two bell-ringers waiting around in a bell tower during a thunderstorm. There used to be a very persistent superstition that ringing church bells could dispel thunderstorms, despite the fact that holding a wet bell-rope inside a pointy tower is inadvisable around lightning. The play is set in a kind of version of the past, in a world full of omens, where the storms are getting worse and worse.

3. What was the inspiration for the show and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?

I briefly had a job in a cathedral. I would sit at the front desk reading science fiction and occasionally welcoming people. Once a week the bell-ringers would come in and line up against the very distant opposite wall, waiting to go in. I think I probably wrote down the word ‘bellringers’ around that time. Then, a few years later, I took part in the Royal Court’s Introduction to Playwriting Group. We all wrote a play after that and I think I probably did a bit of research about bell-ringers then. Once I read this fact about bell-ringers and lightning, I knew that’s what the play would be. The play went through a lot of redrafts over a couple of years, with the support of the then literary team at the Royal Court Theatre. Then, when it made the final five for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2023, Ellie Keel told me she wanted to produce it. That feels like it was very recently–and now we’re here!

4. **What made you want to take Bellringers to the Fringe?**

I’ve always wanted to go to the Fringe. Growing up, a lot of my heroes were ‘alternative’ comedians. I would listen to them on the radio late at night, back when there was quite a direct Fringe-success-to-Radio-4 pipeline. Edinburgh seemed like a magical place, but not one I ever imagined taking a show to, so I amhugely excited to be going.

5.Apart from seeing your show, what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?

I have never been, so I’d better not be handing out advice. Seek shade on hot days.

6. Why should people book to see your show?

We’re still early on in the creative process, but it’s so exciting to see what the actors and director are doing with the play. I’m really blown away by the skill and thought that goes into this side of making a show, which is fairly new to me. I hope theplay is funny, moving, and weird. And there’s a lot about mushrooms in it. So if that’s your jam, theplay is for you.