'Ride the Cyclone' review — this strange but sweet new musical is one of the giddiest delights of the year

Read our review of Ride the Cyclone, directed by Lizzie Gee, now in performances at Southwark Playhouse to 10 January 2026.

Summary

• New musical Ride the Cyclone makes its UK premiere at Southwark Playhouse
• The story follows six teenagers who are offered one last shot at life after a freak rollercoaster accident
• Lizzie Gee's strong cast includes Damon Gould and Grace Galloway

Musicals don’t get more bonkers than Ride the Cyclone, which I saw in its 2016 premiere Off Broadway, following previous runs in Chicago and Canada, dating back to 2009. And lest that sound as if I am proffering a cautionary note, far from it.

This collaboration between Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell emerges out of comparative left field as one of the giddiest delights of the year, served up in a deftly pitched production from the English director-choreographer Lizzie Gee that finds both joy and emotion in what might otherwise be merely weird. As European premieres go, this acts as a wonderful shop window for further iterations still to come.

The set-up is certainly, um, unusual: six teenage members of the Saint Cassian Chamber Choir from Uranium City in Canada - an actual northern settlement in Saskatchewan – have been thrown off a fairground ride following a broken axle.

The derailment has led to their deaths, but not so fast. As is the whimsical way of theatre trafficking in the afterlife (of which there has been quite a bit of late), it seems that one of the characters will get a second chance at life providing they can persuade The Amazing Karnak (Edward Wu) that they are deserving of such good fortune. Karnak, by the way, is a “precognition machine”, which is surely the rarest of musical descriptors.

What ensues is a sing-off of the oddest, most subversively alluring sort that allows each of these adolescents a showboating turn, along with a knockout song that speaks to who that person really is. Tail-wagging felines ramp up the opportunities for dance without quite taking us into the realm of Cats, while the siren song of showbiz suggests a madcap equivalent to The Voice.

The structure ensures audience engagement by implicitly asking playgoers to choose their favourite, just as the aspish Karnak will proceed himself to do. I hope it doesn’t sound too equivocal to say that the sextet yearning for more life all lay separate claims to the heart, and that this company, if memory serves, significantly improves on the New York one.

Three amongst them are making their professional debuts, whilst one who is not – the galvanic Damon Gould – has been causing a chatroom sensation in recent months as an occasional Emcee in Cabaret. Here cast as the dreamer-fantasist, Noel, who was apparently given to quoting Beckett in seventh grade, Gould tears into his self-labeled “Lament”. The number gives off the air of Kander and Ebb (speaking of Cabaret) on amphetamines, as this onetime Taco Bell employee leans into his alter ego in the afterlife as a gay glam rocker.

All the cast seize their moments to shine with unforced brio, and there isn’t a duff voice to be heard: musical director Ben McQuigg’s five-piece band keeps pace every keyboard and bass-fuelled step of the way.

Pay heed to Baylie Carson, Robyn Gilbertson and Bartek Kraszewski, all of whom look as if they are having the time of their lives: the “gangsta persona” of Kraszewski’s Ukrainian tearaway, Mischa, doesn’t prevent the possibility of some same-sex flirtation. Jack Maverick’s Ricky Potts quite literally finds his voice – and a glittering persona – in his newfound limbo, and the extraordinary Grace Galloway, playing the decapitated Jane Doe, fields notes that shouldn’t be possible coming from her headless self.

Ryan Dawson-Laight’s design suggests a carnie attraction as it might be reconfigured for a game show, though Ride the Cyclone wears its zeitgeisty associations more gracefully than many shows of this ilk. Much to my amazement, I came away after 90 minutes with a lump in my throat, which pays credit and then some to this musical’s ability to pivot from the strange, even sinister, through to something very sweet.

Ride the Cyclone is at Southwark Playhouse to 10 January 2026.

Photo credit: Ride the Cyclone (Photos by Danny Kaan)