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press tickets for review

If there’s one new musical soundtrack that you should listen to this year, it’s the Ride musical. Give ‘Out of Time‘, ‘By My Side and ‘Across America‘ a listen on Spotify and you’ll get a feel for just how powerful this performance is.

It was an absolute privilege to bare witness to Freya Catrin Smith and Jack Williams’s Ride brought to life by the exceptional talents of Liv Andrusier and Katy Ellis. A two person production is a monumental task to sustain interest, yet these two truly brought the production to life with depth and passion.

In the same way SIX empowers Henry VIII’s wives and emphasises their story, Ride takes on a similar stance. Without Ride, Annie Londonderry’s story would have never been something I’d have known about, and to lose such an incredible story in forgotten history would have been a tragic loss.

Centred around a little-known story, American Annie Londonderry, née Kopchovsky, a Latvian Jewish immigrant, circumnavigated around the world by bicycle in hopes to diminish her financial and circumstancial burdens relying upon a wager to prove to the world that she could do it.

Andrusier brings Annie to life with a quirky demeanour who starts to unravel her character showing she truly is a chameleon as she so proudly announces. Tough skin, a bold character with a story to tell. As announced on Curve’s interview, Liv Andrusier explains that she felt that Annie was a character she resonated with and she demonstrated just why she was able to be Annie.

The story highlights themes such as anti-Semitism, feminism, gay pride and inequality. Despite perhaps Annie’s story being one that could be selfish, it’s also the story of desperation. The story of taking control. The story of wanting more. The story of wanting to be something.

It wasn’t the story of the self-indulgent Fred Rose who heads off on a trip to find himself and a little bit of peace from the rat race perfect life, it’s the story of the woman who is prepared to do and give anything to be something. It’s the story of the woman who has to embellish her victories to be something. It’s the story of reinvention. A shedding of skin and persona, just for a moment.

Now, this show is brought to life by two fantastic and equally talented women. Martha (Katy Ellis) enters just as Annie is pitching to the room of gentlemen to become a newspaper columnist and drags Martha in to be her acting support. A shy and reserved Martha too finds herself thanks to the empowerment of a good fictional tale. Katy Ellis was both charming and comedic in a less showman role.

The set is an interesting collection of bookcases, a world map and desks which will later open into projected landscapes finished off with bikes. The scenes with Fred Rose throughout the world were some of my favourite visually. The lighting here and use of the projection was astounding. Watching the sun start to set and seeing the subtle changes complemented the goosebump worthy performance of ‘Miles away from Boston‘.

There are moments when the show starts to feel a little slow and it would have been interesting to see more depth of the darker thoughts of Annie and her desperation. It’s a 90-minute performance that relies on the two characters to deliver and they certainly do.

Thank you Ride for bringing the story of Annie to life and showing that even with odds stacked against you, there’s power in a fight. Despite being a flawed individual, she was one with a story both fact and fiction that deserved a spotlight.

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Curve Theatre, Leicester 07 JUL – 15 JUL
Running time: 90 minutes (no interval)
Age Recommendation: 10+ contains flashing lights and strong language. The show also includes mild references to racism, anti-semitism, and sexism.