Mini Review: Ned Boulting’s Marginal Mystery Tour: 1923 and all that

Ned Boulting is back with another one man show, which is in essence a two-hour retelling of his latest book, 1923. If you’re not familiar with the book then it tells the story of the chance acquisition of an original reel of Pathé footage, two and a half minutes of a report on stage four of the 1923 Tour de France: 412km, from Brest to Les Sables d’Olonne along the Altlantic coast. With very little to go on – even the year the footage was from was unlear, since the route remained the same six years in a row – the short film, showing a single rider breaking away over the iron bridge at La Roche Bernard, became a lockdown obsession for Ned, and the book draws together threads of the race, the between-the-wars political situation in a newly-enlarged France, the popular culture of the time, and a personal perspective of the COVID pandemic.

I went to catch the show, which runs until November 20, in Bristol last night, the third night of the 22-show run. A couple of times it felt like Ned was still feeling his way with the material, and the reaction of a live audience to it, but overall it’s a really well-put together performance. There’s a clear narrative, and the live show follows the book quite faithfully, but this isn’t just a book reading. If you’ve read the book you’ll know that it’s not a joke-fest: there’s a lot of pretty painful stuff going on in the world at that time, and all of the riders from what Hemingway coined “the lost generation” were survivors of the horrors of World War One with their own stories to tell. At times the book is also a fairly candid exploration of the author’s mental state during COVID, and the changes in lifestyle that lockdown forced upon everyone. 

All of this is covered in the live show, but the tone of the two hours is generally upbeat, and it’s to Ned’s credit that he manages to cover some difficult topics in a show that contains plenty of laughs, and overall doesn’t feel weighty. It’s a fairly complicated show, with quite a lot of props and technical cues, and three days into the run much of the timing was already spot on. It’s also very well performed: this is Ned Boulting playing a slightly magnified version of himself (amongst other characters) and showcases his obvious talent for physical acting and bringing a story to life on stage.

If you haven’t read the book, then I’d say the show is well-pitched: You could turn up with no knowledge of the story at all, and leave feeling like it’s been fully told. Clearly there’s a huge amount of detail in the book, and a two-hour show has to be selective, but nothing gets entirely left out. The show majors on the story of the film, where the book gives the more general history of the time a more equal weighting, but something has to give. If you’re already up to speed with the story then the live retelling will bring it to life, and there’s plenty of anecdotal material woven in around the story that will give it a bit of a fresh perspective.

Ned Boulting’s Marginal Mystery Tour: 1923 and all that runs from now until 20 November. For show dates and more info head to https://www.nedboulting.com/live