A Real Race Around the World

Around The World in Ninety Minutes

A Real Race Around the World

by David Hovatter and The Company

The Questors at the Questors Studio, Ealing until 22^nd February

Review by Andrew Lawston

Puck could put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, Phileas Fogg took eighty days, while Lavarède managed the trip with just five sous in his pocket, in Paul d’Ivoi’s novel Les Cinq Sous de Lavarède.  Ever since the first Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation of 1519-1521, fictional characters and real people have been trying to get around the world ever faster.

This penchant for speedy travel reached its zenith in 1889, when the New York World’’sinvestigative journalist Nellie Bly set off on a transatlantic crossing to beat Phileas Fogg’s fictional eighty day record.  Meanwhile, a fledgling magazine called Cosmopolitan sent writer Elizabeth Bisland west, in an attempt to make the trip even faster.

A Real Race Around the World is director David Hovatter’s depiction of this contest.  With a cast of eight actors, one musician, and a set comprising just eight chairs in the Studio at The Questor’s Theatre, this devised performance sets out to present not one, but two global voyages.

Rather than contrasting with the bare black set, the all-female cast lean into the monochrome colour scheme with a black and white wardrobe of corsets, frocks and pinstripes courtesy of Jenny Richardson.  In addition to the restricted palette, this journey through the colonial world of the late nineteenth century carries a distinct and appropriate steampunk aesthetic – particularly for Nellie and Elizabeth who both sport goggles on their striking hats.

With no set or props to speak of, Hovatter keeps the action moving with a constant flow as the cast mimes its way through ocean crossings, typing pools, textile factories, and train journeys.

The story is broken up only by occasional musical numbers, a combination of live music from Gareth Bevan on bass guitar, and singing against 1930s jazz and swing music with the original vocals scrubbed by technical wizardry.  None of the songs outstay its welcome in this pacy production, and most of the clearly multi-talented cast gets to sing at least one number.  Chant of the Jungle, Snake Charmer, and Geisha Girl were particular favourites, but all the songs were effective, both entertaining and moving the story along.

A Real Race Around the World is very much an ensemble piece, but Fionna Gough and Asha Gill shine as Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland respectively.  Both lead characters boast impeccable American accents, and both perform a huge amount of intricate dialogue, taken from the two writers’ real accounts of their separate journeys.  Bisland’s literary style contrasts brilliantly with the more prosaic Bly, and the dialogue flows as smoothly as the movement, choreographed by Freddy Henry and Falko.

There is room for comedy in this brisk tale, as Gough gives a convincing performance of seasickness during a choppy sea voyage, and Gill revels in describing attractive gentlemen.

Hannah Victory plays John Cockerill, the New York World’’s sharp editor.  In a committed performance, she seems constantly on the verge of banging her desk and demanding photographs of Spider-Man.  Jennifer Nettles is somewhat calmer as John Brisben Walker, Editor of Cosmopolitan, but still exclaims “Crap!” loudly at every setback that Bisland encounters on her travels.  The ensemble of Rebecca Llanes, Kate Kasampali, Phoebe Fitzgerald and Falko all have their moments to shine, through dance, song, and wonderfully-timed moments of comedy.

The script, credited to both Hovatter and The Company, respects historic details, taking time to depict a brief meeting between Bly and Jules Verne (a brief turn by Gareth Bevan, who puts down his bass guitar for a couple of minutes), as well as the moment when Bisland is told that she has missed a vital connection on her journey.  This misunderstanding rightly leaves open the question of whether Bisland was misinformed or actively deceived.  The audience also gets to hear about Bly’s history of investigative journalism, and Bisland’s own background of reduced circumstances.

A Real Race Around the World is a hugely entertaining, breathless romp of a show that runs faster than its characters’ quest to circumnavigate the globe.  The monochrome, minimalist production puts the cast’s excellent performances right in the foreground.  The question of who actually won the historic race is almost irrelevant.  The play celebrates female achievement in a time when few women worked as journalists, let alone as globe-trotting adventurers.

Andrew Lawston, February 2025

Photography by Paula Robinson