Spin Cycles at The Camden People’s Theatre Review
Written by Liam Arnold for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
Jamie-Lee Money’s Spin Cycles opens exactly where it promises to: with its performer already pedalling furiously on a stationary bike. The image is efficient, symbolic and faintly ironic — a woman in relentless motion, going nowhere fast. Over the next hour, Money uses that bike as both setting and metaphor in a solo show that is sharply performed and neatly produced, if ultimately more polished than piercing.
Money plays Lolly, a London-based journalist assigned to review a boutique spin studio that veers towards the cultish. She approaches the task with weary scepticism, a stance that quickly broadens into a worldview defined by irony, detachment and self-protective wit. Money is an assured solo performer, switching deftly between characters — a nosy airline passenger, a workplace intern, an evangelical spin instructor — with clarity and speed. These caricatures are efficiently drawn and often very funny.
The tone throughout is distinctly sardonic. Lolly is not especially warm, nor is she intended to be, and Money commits fully to the character’s abrasiveness. Yet this presents a dramaturgical problem: while we are entertained by Lolly’s cynicism, we are rarely invited to move beyond it. Her emotional distance is explained largely through grief — the death of a friend, the loss of a grandparent, and the looming fear surrounding her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis — but these experiences are sketched rather than excavated.
The most affecting thread, the sudden death of a close friend at 21, is introduced with genuine weight before being quietly set aside. It feels like a missed opportunity. Without allowing this loss to meaningfully shape Lolly’s present behaviour, the play struggles to justify the scale of her emotional fragmentation. Grief is named repeatedly, but rarely embodied.
Director Larica Schnell’s production is sleek and controlled. Lighting and sound design create an immersive spin-class atmosphere, pulsing with music and momentum. At times, however, these elements feel like a substitute for emotional escalation rather than a complement to it. The show remains consistently watchable, but seldom surprising.
There is also a sense of thematic overcrowding. Alongside grief sit anxieties about illness, body image, compulsive behaviours, casual intimacy and professional dissatisfaction. Each is intelligent in isolation, yet together they blur rather than deepen. The play moves briskly between ideas without allowing any single strand to fully land.
That said, Spin Cycles has clear strengths. Money’s physical endurance is remarkable, her comic timing sharp, and her satirical eye for wellness culture well-honed. The show is confident, accessible and likely to resonate with audiences familiar with its London-centric milieu.
What it ultimately lacks is risk. To fulfil its stated ambition of catharsis, Spin Cycles would need to slow down, linger longer, and allow its central character — and its performer — to sit uncomfortably inside the grief it so fluently describes. As it stands, this is an accomplished and engaging debut, but one that circles its emotional core rather than fully stepping into it.
Spin Cycles is playing at Camden People's Theatre until 7th February
★★★
