Friday, November 22

Tag: Ride

Ride – Southwark Playhouse Elephant
London

Ride – Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Ride is a British musical that Returns to London after a period at the Charing Cross Theatre last year. This show is back and even better than before. Presented as a pitch for her very own newspaper column we see Annie Londonderry commandeer office assistant Martha and together the two of them narrate Annie’s journey in 1894 to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe via bicycle. The performers speak directly to the audience as though we are the panel they are pitching to. Which is great for this story especially given the double act cast and small intimate set. The transition between relaying the story to the board vs Annie disappearing into her reality was profound and the shift was palpable via the energy in the audience. All the book, music and lyrics are by Freya Cat...
Ride: A New Musical – Charing Cross Theatre
London

Ride: A New Musical – Charing Cross Theatre

In 1894, Annie Londonderry set off on a solo circumnavigation of the world by bike. That her name and this radical accomplishment is almost entirely unknown is as big a mystery as is the real story of her travels. She was born in Latvia, emigrated to the US as a child and suffered the loss of her parents, leaving her at just 16 to care for her younger siblings. She married in an attempt to achieve financial stability and had three children. But it seems it was the death of her younger brother that was the seminal moment that propelled her towards her pioneering ride around the world. There's talk of a wager, adventures with the myriad people she meets along the way, relationships developed and abandoned.  On her triumphant return to the US in 1895, following an initial wave of media a...