Ride: A New Musical - Garrick / Charing Cross / Curve / SWP

Thanks TallPaul, I took advantage of the offer and saw this last night.

The show is great fun. On the upside, it's a fascinating bit of history, the songs are top notch and brilliantly performed, the pace is fast, the chemistry in this two-hander is on point, and there are a lot of laughs. On the downside, the set-up is so good that the piece promises more laughs than it delivers, and the big emotional turn isn't triggered with sufficient precision by the book.

Some spoilers follow. . .

The space feels shrunken from how it normally is, in the sense that the seats are like they are in the two-sided configuration of the space, but without the seats on the other side of the playing area. The mystery of the missing space one the other side of the stage resolved itself neatly and cleverly.

The simple but effective set is an office space, with a checkered floor, a desk, with a big map of the world and bookcases on the sides.

In this space, Annie Londonderry, the first female to bicycle around the world in 1894, played as a nervy dynamo by Liv Andrusier, angles for a job as a newspaper columnist, from us. She enlists the help of lowly newspaper employee, Martha, played as a wide-eyed wallflower of a fangirl by Yuki Sutton.

Yuki Sutton is a real star in this, convincing as a shy conformist wallflower, but then equally convincing exploding out of her shell, almost against her will, such is the hypnotic charisma of Liv Andrusier's Annie Londonderry. Sutton gets nearly all the laughs, every time she endearingly explodes out of her endearing shell, all wide-eyed and gleeful at discovering her inner performer.

The song "Everybody Loves a Lie" is an absolute hoot and is worth the price of admission alone.

The part of Annie Londonderry is incredibly complex, like a Russian doll, with the outer layer being the first female to proudly bicycle around the world against the odds, the middle layer being a Barnumesque huckster, and the inner layer, well, you've got to watch the show to find out. . .

The lifting of the outer layer is done well by the show, but the lifting of the middle layer to reveal Annie's true tender core is mishandled, and it's like you don't really understand how or why it happens. The show intends us to understand that some kind of change comes over Annie when she meets a character called Fred Rose (also played by Sutton), so "The Charmed Existence of Fred Rose" is evidently intended as a key song, but I enevr felt that kind of impact that would justify Annie revealing her true inner core.

I felt like there was a scene or event missing, such as the arrival of a letter from home, news about the family, you know something that could really stir the pot and shake Anie's soul into the kind of crazy intimate revealtions she'd never typically countenance, but no such event happened, so Annie's final turn struck me as unearned by the book.

Notwithstanding that, I had a ball with this musical. Every song delivered either the rush of adventure, a comic turn or a rousing emotional revelation, and I liked them very much, in particular "Across America" and "Everybody Loves a Lie."

I do think there could be more comedy in the show if Liv Andrusier's Annie were to hit more insurmountable obstacles. She is a force of nature, like say, Henry Lewis of Mischief Theatre, and it's when such characters go splat that we laugh, not when they always get their way. As it is, we turn to Yuki Sutton for the laughs.

Andrusier does exceptionally well with what she is given, convincingly nervy in her job interview, convincingly fast-speaking huckster when circumstances demand, and emotionally bruised when nothing else works, and she sings wonderfully.

Andrusier and Sutton have great chemistry together.

Despite feeling the show could manage more laughs, and despite the climax coming out of nowhere, I felt the show had so many good songs, so much good singing, so much interesting history, and such an endearing central duo, that I had a great time.

3 and a half stars.