First staged in Canada in 2008, Ride the Cyclone has its Australian premiere at the Hayes Theatre Co – and Richard Carroll’s smart production certainly takes you on quite a ride.

Written by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell (with additional material by Alan Schmuckler), Ride the Cyclone is a darkly comic, strange but strangely delightful show with a macabre premise.

Six teenager choristers from the dead-end mining town of Uranium City, Saskatchewan die in a freak rollercoaster accident. Finding themselves in some kind of limbo, they are invited by a mechanical fortune teller called The Amazing Karnak to share their story. The prize? One of them will win the chance to return to life.

Justin Gray and the cast of Ride the Cyclone, Hayes Theatre Co, 2024. Photo © Prudence Upton

Blending existentialism with teenage angst as they reveal their experiences, insecurities and dreams, the show asks what makes a life worth living? And who among them deserves a second chance?

After starting life in Canada, Ride the Cyclone became a hit in Chicago and New York, and then something of an online phenomenon with over half a billion views of...