Cadel: Lungs on Legs at Riverside Studios Review
Image: Kyle Dax Smith
This show made me care about cycling. Until this point, never been my thing. Suddenly, I want to watch the Tour de France.
Connor Delves’ production about Australian cyclist Cadel Evans combines the excitement of watching sports with the more intimate storytelling of a solo show. The story spans years, tracking Evans from childhood cycling through to his thirties, so it has to cover a lot of ground quickly. Some moments therefore land better than others, some things have to be rushed through, but once you’re seeing Evans compete, everything comes together. You can’t help but be on the edge of your seat as you hear how Cadel Evans pushed his body to the absolute limit.
Delves, too, is pushing himself to limit. Cycling furiously throughout the production, this is part performance, part work out for him. It’s incredibly impressive, and communicates exactly what he wants it to; the sheer force of will it takes to overcome exhaustion and bodily limits, to keep going. He recreates the conditions of a cycling competition as far as you possibly could onstage, giving you a really good sense of the parameters, of how you keep yourself going, and of what could go wrong.
This is also where the script (by Connor Delves and Steve McMahon) shines the most - adding individual narrative to the usually much more birds eye view an event like Tour de France. It builds brilliantly on the energy of watching sports live. The use of real footage of Evans and the graphics of the Tour de France is also a great choice that brings everything to life. I was so invested by the end of the production that I honestly had to remind myself that I wasn’t watching cycling live, that I wasn’t watching Evans himself.
That is why I would absolutely say that even if, like me, you have very little interest in cycling itself, you should absolutely catch this show. It is an innovative and moving combination of genres that deserves all of the recognition it has already had. This is very clearly a production made out of love for the sport and admiration for Cadel Evans’s career, which shows in every choice in the show.
Seriously at the end I nearly cried. At cycling. It will do the same to you. Catch it whilst it’s at Riverside Studios until the 15th November, you will come out of it with a huge appreciation of the incredible endurance of men like Cadel Evans. I think I’m going to watch the Tour de France this year, so the show clearly worked on me.
★★★★
Written by Jasmine for Theatre and Tonic, October 2026.