Participants assigned a specific character in a role-playing game undertake a fictional train journey to an island, in order to win a cash prize, only for the competition to become a microcosm of the limitations they experience in their real lives.

Bolbol tells the story of three generations of Iranian women under one roof in London. Maryam dedicates her life to care for her elderly mother Maman Joon who has dementia while simultaneously raising her teenage daughter Sadira who struggles with her Iranian-British identity.