Instead of exploring the relationship between the unlikely saviour and those he helped, Glory Ride offers up a perfunctory gentile love triangle between Gino, his eventual wife Adriana (the always reliable Amy Di Bartolomeo) and Mario (Fed Zanni), her previous boyfriend who joins the Blackshirts. Scene follows scene in such quick succession that nothing ever lands. Characters never get time to breath so as a result, we never feel involved in their stories. Too often director Kelly Devine has characters wander off with no greater motivation than she wants the stage cleared for a solo song.
Musically Victoria Buchholz’s songs tend towards the banal and instantly forgettable. Most have a pop rock vibe, reminiscent of something like Notre Dame De Paris but without the grandeur. A number where Gino’s father disavows him inexplicably has a Glee-like peppiness. Di Bartolomeo’s Act 1 belter, Promises, sees her showboating riffs and runs but it comes across as so American, so lacking the show’s European aesthetic, you wonder if it belongs in a different production. 800 Souls is the standout number, with a soaring emotional heft, delivered beautifully by Niall Sheehy‘s Cardinal Dalla Costa.