Ride the Cyclone the Musical
Rollercoasters and death may sound like a strange subject for a musical but Ride the Cyclone at Southwark Playhouse spins them into its own brand of jaunty strangeness. Premiering in Canada in 2009 and running off-Broadway in 2015, it has taken almost 15 years for the Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell-penned show to make it to the UK. It begins with a freak rollercoaster accident dispatching six teens to a limbo presided over by the Amazing Karnak (Edward Wu), a mechanical oracle perched inside a fortune-telling booth. Suspended above a compact, adaptable set — a rotating platform and projections flickering at its centre — Wu strikes the perfect balance of ominous overseer and animatronic RuPaul, warming the audience up with cheeky meta-jokes about theatre etiquette.
When the teens arrive, they’re joined by Jane Doe (Grace Galloway), a mysterious girl with no memory and no head, and informed — albeit in riddles — of the rules of a contest in which only one of them will earn a second chance at life. Each must plead their case: Ocean (Baylie Carson), the pro-democracy overachiever with a moral compass; Noel (Damon Gould), the romantic with hopes of living it out in Paris; Mischa (Bartek Kraszewski), the rage-filled rapper with a surprisingly tender underbelly; Ricky (Jack Maverick), the formerly mute comic-book-loving fantasist; and Constance (Robyn Gilbertson), the ‘nicest’ girl in town, who carries more emotional heft than she lets on.
It all sounds pretty dark, but...