A life-affirming musical about teens who die in a brutal rollercoaster accident, left lost in a purgatorial game controlled by a cruel fortune teller, sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Still, it largely works in this quirky revival. 

Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell’s book follows the St. Cassian High School chamber choir, celebrating second place in a one-choir competition, who meet an untimely demise when the brakes fail on their ride on ‘The Cyclone’. The five, plus a ‘Jane Doe’, then find themselves in the expanse between life and death, at the mercy of ‘The Amazing Karnak’ (Edward Wu), a mechanical fortune teller, who becomes the game master for the game the group are invited to play, where one will be granted their life back. It is a barmy premise, yet one that largely sticks its landing, and despite its gloomy beginning, soon becomes a sweet and moving tale of life, death, and the friendships in between. 

Baylie Carson, as the preppy, wonderfully irritating Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg, shines as the choir’s lead. Ocean, full of self-belief that she was due to change the world, quickly infuriates her fellow choristers with her ambition, and it’s her self-assured nature which Carson quickly establishes to great effect. 

This is developed nicely through Ocean’s interactions with long-suffering best friend Constance (Robyn Gilbertson). Relentlessly put down by Ocean and held back, it is through Constance’s number, one of six, which gives each character a chance to sing for survival, where the piece hits a more emotional heartbeat. Gilbertson brings a deft vulnerability to the role, with Constance’s desperation to have lived a life outside for the small backwater town a nice contrast to the big dreams and outlandish ambitions of the other teens. 

Indeed, Gilbertson’s Constance provides a neat contrast of mellowness to the outlandish nature of the other characters. Damon Gould’s oppressed Noel is given a chance to express his true self in a brilliantly camp homage to French cinema that does go on for slightly too long, while Bartek Kraszewski’s Ukrainian Mischa cossack dances his way through a terrific solo number that blends angry rap with a bittersweet lament on lost love. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Purnell’s once-mute Ricky finds his voice in a frenetic and frankly bizarre space cats-inspired solo, and it is when it leans fully into the absurd that the musical shines. 

Grace Calloway’s Jane Doe haunts the stage in melodramatic makeup, a brutal representation of the carnage caused, with Calloway stealing the show with her tremendous ‘The Ballad of Jane Doe’ solo. It is a musical that whiplashes, but tonally, no more obvious than in the switch from space cats to decapitated teens. 

The rules of Karnak’s game are devilishly put across by a terrific Wu, who doubles as the musical’s narrator. Yet it is also this game that hinders the piece, too. The repetitive structure of each character’s backstory being sung for attempted victory is a little too recurring, prolonging the inevitable slightly too much. 

Ryan Dawson Laight’s set design, complete with ride signage and festoon lighting, supports Lizzi Gee’s bold direction well, with the fairground exterior a neat contrast to the macabre topic. This blends well and is aided by a deft use of a revolve to add to the spiralling the characters suffer, desperate to claim their own freedom. 

By the end, the group are invited to vote for who should return to the land of the living, and while the outcome is pretty predictable, enough has been shaped through the characters’ backgrounds for it to reach a sweet conclusion. 

Ride the Cyclone might be born out of a rollercoaster crash, but it is certainly no Big Dipper. A sweet, cute, hour-and-a-half of heartwarming musical theatre.