Wardell’s full-throttle torch song as his drag alter-ego is so full of flamboyant passion it stops the show within its first half hour.Īfter Noel comes Ocean and you wonder how she can live up to the high level he has set-but she does. But poor Noel-not only does he die a virgin but he dies never even having kissed a man. His arty parent exposed him at an early age to French New Wave cinema and ever since then his dream has been to live the life as depicted by Jeanne Moreau and others of an abused, self-destructive French prostitute.

First up is Noel Gruber (Kholby Wardell) as the only gay guy in Uranium. Ocean Rosenberg (Rielle Braid), the bossy host of the show decides that each of the six members of the first-rate cast will tell their life story followed by a song. Out of remorse, he brings the choir back to life to stage one final concert to come to terms with their death. In fact, he encouraged them to ride the Cyclone.

The narrator for the evening is Karnak (manipulated by James Insell), a mechanical fortune-telling machine, who had foreseen the tragedy but whose reprogramming for family audiences had banned him from revealing the truth to the victims. Cassian Chamber Choir from Uranium, Saskatchewan, who die in a freak roller coaster accident at a travelling fair. The musical’s unconventional subject is the death of the entire St. Think of Glee crossed with Twin Peaks and you’ll get some idea of the tunefully macabre fun in store. Many Canadian companies have aimed for quirkiness in their chamber musicals, but few have achieved it with such glorious panache as Victoria’s Atomic Vaudeville with their latest creation.

Ride the Cyclone is surely the most wildly inventive musical Toronto has seen in years. Music and lyrics by Brooke Maxwell & Jacob Richmond, book by Jacob Richmond, directed by Britt Small & Jacob RichmondĪtomic Vaudeville with Acting Up Stage, Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, Toronto

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