Ride The Cyclone – Southwark Playhouse Elephant

The company of Ride The Cyclone at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London. Picture: Danny Kaan

Ride The Cyclone continues at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London until 10 January 2025.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This musical about the tragic deaths of six innocent teenagers in a horrific roller coaster accident is hilarious. Uplifting too. And this isn’t just yet another case of a theatre reviewer being a sociopath. No, on the night I attended the entire Southwark Playhouse was alive with thunderous laughter and applause. Something strange is going on here…

Creators Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell (who co-wrote the book, music, and lyrics) have seen Ride The Cyclone gain a passionate cult following since its Canadian premiere in 2009. Finally arriving this month in London at Southwark Playhouse – always a superb venue for championing new and interesting theatre – it’s hard to imagine this will be anything other than a hit.

The producers clearly agree. Encouraged by the online buzz and very healthy ticket sales, they have populated the theatre bar with photo opportunities and various fairground-themed novelties. While enjoying your interval wine, why not hook a duck? This is a production designed for audiences to get obsessed. In fact, many attendees on this occasion turned up dressed as characters from the musical.

And it doesn’t hurt that the show itself is great too. Don’t let the premise fool you: though the show deals with some very real and human themes, its titular roller coaster disaster is fictional and the tone is loveably daft. Set in the evocatively named but remote and sparsely populated real-life Uranium City (in Saskatchewan, Canada) we are introduced to six members of an enthusiastic but unsuccessful choir who have just won second place at a competition only they entered. To make matters worse, they have also just died in a theme park disaster.

Overseeing their afterlife is The Amazing Karnak, a fortune-telling fairground automaton played with a pitch-perfect blend of uncanny incorporeality and unsettling authority by Edward Wu. One by one, choristers make their case to be the one dead teenager The Amazing Karnak allows to travel back to ‘the other side’ and continue their life.

Structurally, there are hints of Cats, A Chorus Line and Six here, but with its expert tightrope walk between silly humour and profound sentiment, Ride The Cyclone feels wholly original. With only 90 minutes and no interval, it is shocking how deeply we are dragged into contemplation of death while laughing the whole time. The book delivers gags impressive in both their quantity and quality.

Having just opened, there are a very few brief moments in this performance where one can imagine the comedy being tightened as the cast’s chemistry grows, but this audience still leat with sides thoroughly and methodically split. All the more reason to make that repeat visit – and I am booking more tickets before thing sells out.

First, we are introduced to over-achieving choir leader Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg. The brilliant Baylie Carson strikes the perfect balance between insufferable try-hard and a pitiable delusion, so absurd is this character’s self-obsession. Her voice is also stunning; grating when comedically necessary, but soaring majestically when she takes centre stage with the hilarious ‘What the World Needs’.

Jack Maverick plays Ricky Potts, perfectly capturing an awkward outsider comportment before threatening to steal the show in full glam rock, Bowie/Rocky Horror majesty with ‘Space Age Bachelor Man’.

Meanwhile Damon Gould and Bartek Kraszewski deliver the evening’s most impressive physical performances with the impeccably choreographed ‘Noel’s Lament’ and ‘This Song is Awesome’ – while sounding incredible throughout, of course. The soul and ultimate depth to the piece comes from the seemingly shy and overlooked Constance Blackwood, played with fine pure acting chops and an equally joyous vocal talent by Robyn Gilbertson.

However, it is the sixth choir member whose entrance is the most memorable. Grace Galloway is otherworldly – and honestly a little terrifying from the front row – as Jane Doe: a girl decapitated in the accident who nobody could identify nor remember. Her arrival injects proceedings with ruminations on legacy and life’s meaning, resulting in a beautiful and emotional finale. It should also be noted here that Galloway’s soprano vocals are sent directly from the gods.

The teenage selfishness suffusing this show is recognisable. Faced with an absurd and terrifying world, of course we instinctively self-preserve. It’s how human beings are wired. However, there is transcendence to be found in irrationality, in kindness, in acceptance, and sometimes even in death. As the show ends with an invitation to consider our own mortality with the song ‘It’s Just a Ride’, Ride the Cyclone burrows its way into the psyche where it will no doubt reside far longer than most musical comedies.

This is helped immeasurably by a superbly catchy score, of course. Despite occasional hammerings of suspended chords as is seemingly obligatory in modern musical theatre, this set of songs is far more ambitious and adventurous stylistically than most. We are treated to everything from glam rock to 00’s hip hop to opera. And this is more than surface level pastiche: where many musicals might slap an ‘exotic’ keyboard preset on the same predictable chord sequence, Richmond and Maxwell are for more harmonically ambitious and it really pays off. Despite being a sub-par choir in the show, this score comes alive when all six singing performers harmonise.

Musical director Ben McQuigg leads his five-piece band in remarkably tight and lush orchestrations. Though several cast recordings of various legality are already circulating online for this show, I hope we get at least a few tracks performed by this team preserved for posterity.

Director Lizzi Gee has put together an exquisite production here, and her choreography is impressively energetic while making good use of the small stage. Ryan Dawson Laight’s set design is another highlight, suggesting a haunted carnival pulled directly from a Tom Waits nightmare. Shout out also to illusion designer Richard Pinner for bringing some delighted gasps and giggles of shock to the evening.

Ride The Cyclone is one of the most striking and likeable new musicals I have seen in a long time. More than living up to its considerable hype, this singularly funny and original show flirts with the profound while never being anything less than a damn good time. Strap yourself in and hold on tight.

Ian Bowkett