Ride – Charing Cross Theatre

Yuki Sutton (left) and Liv Andrusier in Ride at the Charing Cross Theatre, London. Picture: Danny Kaan

Ride continues at the Charing Cross Theatre, London until 17 September 2022.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The incredible story of the first woman to bicycle around the globe feels like one that should be well known. Names like Nellie Bly, Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson and perhaps even Aloha Wanderwell have resonated loudly throughout history, bestowing immortality to these pioneering women. But Annie Londonderry? It’s not a name I’d ever heard until this evening when settling down at the Charing Cross Theatre for Ride – a new musical that aims to set the record straight and restore Ms Londonderry to her rightful place in history.

(So, when I say I’d never heard the name Annie Londonderry, that isn’t entirely true – the show’s title song, ‘Ride’, was recently presented at The Other Palace as part of Darren Clark’s New UK Musicals showcase, performed by Joanna Clarke. In my review, I commented on how important it is for new musical theatre work to tackle topics like this, so it was most rewarding for me to follow up with the full-blown show a month or so later.)

Ride is a new musical with book, music and lyrics by Freya Catrin Smith and Jack Williams, aka Bottle Cap Theatre. Founded in 2012, Bottle Cap aims to create ‘thought-provoking theatre’ that ‘educates and politicises’, and with Ride they’ve done just that, crucially factoring in a third important criteria: to entertain.

The show has gone on a journey of its own since first being conceived in the summer of 2019: it’s grown from a 20-minute one-woman version presented as part of London’s Ceiling Project in November of that year, via the VAULT Festival in March 2020 and a workshopped redevelopment at the Garrick in June last year, to this fully fleshed-out version that’s ready for the world to see.

A nice conceit frames the narrative: a 24-year-old Annie Londonderry, back from her unprecedented round-the-world bicycle trip, pitches her adventures to a walnut-lined office of newspaper editors, roping in help from a secretary (Martha) who just happens to be passing with a tray of refreshments. (Hats off to designer Amy Jane Cook for the set, masculine and dominated by a giant map until Annie literally breaks down the barriers and takes to the open road.)

As the fantastical girl’s-own-adventures unfold, Annie and an increasingly confident Martha act out the events. But rather than merely recount a series of episodes that could so easily have formed the basis for a handful of musicalised Jules-Verne-like vignettes, Smith and Williams, and director Sarah Meadows, take the opportunity to peel away at the layers of their multifaceted lead character.

Londonderry was in reality a Latvian immigrant to Boston named Annie Cohen Kopchovsky (1870–1947), who blurred the line between ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ by crafting her own versions of both. She left her husband and young family behind to embark on her global adventure, and changed her name as part of a sponsorship deal with a bottled spring-water brand. (Even her body was open-season for marketeers: for the right price, she adorned herself and her Sterling Roadster bicycle with advertising slogans.)

The show explores Londonderry’s motivations – she claimed the inspiration for the trip was a $10,000 wager (how very Verne!), something that Smith and Williams pick at – as well as the prevailing attitudes to women at that time. The bicycle is also revealed (a revelation to me, at least) to be a cipher for independence, liberation and emancipation. Neat.

The 90-minute, one-act two-hander stars – and ‘stars’ is definitively the word! – 2021 graduates Liv Andrusier (Royal Academy of Music) as the intrepid Annie and Yuki Sutton (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) as her soundboard Martha.

Andrusier is a fizzing rocket of a performer, utterly in control of the show and demanding every lumen of the spotlight she and her creation deserve. Her Boston-twanged Annie is snappy, sassy and assertive, totally comfortable and safe in the fantasy life that she’s built around her like a suit of armour. But there are chinks in the tuille that slowly open up to reveal the complexities of her real life, and Andrusier digs in deep to create a rounded, very real woman struggling with identity, purpose, prejudice and loneliness.

And wow can Andrusier handle a tune. I’m not sure she needs that mic in the confines of the Charing Cross Theatre, such is the power behind her voice. But she is in control of her instrument, and it’s a lovely tone when it needs to be, especially when the quixotic Annie Londonderry steps aside and the more introspective Annie Kopchovsky emerges. A star is born.

Pretty much the same can be said of co-star Sutton, who starts the show as the meek office junior Martha but who, by living vicariously through Annie’s fantastical claims, emerges as a modern woman to be reckoned with. She also provides much of the comic relief, taking on a string of characters to help Annie pitch her ripping yarn to the newspaper proprietors.

The songs work hard to help tell these stories, each more or less advancing the plot and revealing ever more about our heroine. They’re skilfully written – tuneful and varied, which is important when there are just the two female voices – and there’s a lovely folk-pop jauntiness to them that makes me want to hear more. There’s some very witty lyricism going on too – some of it delivered at such a pace I just couldn’t take notes quick enough. It was a particular joy to encounter ‘Ride’ again, and in my notebook, I’ve given two big ticks to ‘Everybody Loves a Lie’ and ‘Out of Time’.

MDing from the mezzanine was the ever-reliable Sam Young, in control of what sounded like an orchestra’s worth of players (pre-recorded by the 13-strong all-women Broadway Sinfonietta) and supported by guitarist Frankie South and percussionist Alex Maxted. Whatever voodoo this lot used to achieve the precision timing with pre-records, the band sounded great and was nicely balanced with the voices. Yes please to a soundtrack album, which I know is going to sound awesome.

So, get on yer bike and cycle down to the Charing Cross for a dynamic new piece of musical theatre. You’ll not only learn about a fascinating unsung heroine but also about how musical theatre can be the perfect medium to tell stories that are rich, nuanced and culturally important. And blessedly it’s not just another rehash of an existing franchise – indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if a movie producer was inspired to spin this show into something edifying for the big screen…

Craig Glenday