TODD BUCHHOLZ

Cycling legend Gino Bartali’s secret wartime past is a curious choice for a West End musical, but its co-writer believes it’s a story well worth hearing

With apologies for being highly predictable — we’re confident this is always the first thing people ask you about GloryRide — but as only the most ardent road cycling fans have likely heard of your protagonist, our kick-off has to be: why Bartali?

During the 1930s, Gino Bartali was the most famous man in Italy after Mussolini. He’s still famous today. But Glory Ride isn’t really about winning the Tour de France twice and the Giro d’Italia three times. Sure, those races showed physical strength and mental toughness, but Glory Ride tells the story of Gino’s courage and character, the grit that really counts. Only after his death in 2000 did people discover that this man that they knew only through racing had saved hundreds of persecuted people, using his bicycle. Which then prompts the obvious second question — why a musical?

When people think of Italy, they often picture great music, passionate families and amazing food. Glory Ride is an emotional journey. Sometimes dialogue can’t adequately express fear, heartbreak or jubilation. Also, when Gino, played unforgettably by Josh St Clair, rides through the hills, he’s alone. There’s no-one to talk to in the mountains, except for God. But he can sing and the rhythm of the music helps reflect the pace of his rides. Gino’s not the only character who sings. His wife Adriana belts a powerful number called ‘Promises’, and actress Amy Di Bartolomeo shakes the rafters of the Charing Cross Theatre. Cardinal Dalla Costa (Niall Sheehy) wrestles achingly with his conscience in ‘800 Souls’. Your readers can listen to these songs online (see website) or, even better, come to the theatre.

To help readers understand the leap made here, we should probably explain that you’ve spent most of your working life writing, speaking and consulting on economic and political affairs, having served as Director of Economic Policy in the George Bush Snr administration — so how, or why, did you make that jump to writing for theatre?

I can’t deny that it’s a leap. While the famous economist John Maynard Keynes counted box office receipts for the Cambridge Arts Theatre, he didn’t dare write a musical for it! I’ve spent a good part of my life telling stories. When I served the President, I needed to explain economic ideas in memorable ways, so that he could persuade the public and convince other politicians to come to his side. I’ve written a number of books, some of which include biographical stories, and also a novel about a boxer and a megalomaniac hedge fund chief (The Castro Gene). I guess I’m drawn to stories about athletes who are forced to take action outside the ring, beyond the playing field.

You co-wrote GloryRide with your daughter, Victoria — how did you divide the research and writing duties, and bring it all together? And where did you find the majority of the source material?

My daughter Victoria discovered the story for us. She was travelling in Tuscany, near Gino’s home, and read a few sentences in a guidebook. She called to tell me this amazing story and then immediately began composing music. By the time she returned to our home in California, songs like ‘Glory’ and ‘Point of No Return’ were down on paper. We then started writing the script together and mapping out more music. Sometimes we sat in a room together and literally wrote every line for a particular scene, other times we went off separately, each taking a shot. We’ve been working on this for years, and I still remember exactly where I was sitting when I wrote a certain line or when she came up with a lyric.

The source materials came from articles, vintage films, interviews, documentaries and books. We’ve travelled to Tuscany many times. We started learning Italian, and though neither would claim fluency we can order tasty meals at Florentine restaurants.

As you mentioned, Bartali won the Le Tour twice, the Giro three times, plus numerous classics and multi-stage races, but the aspects of his life you focus on, the war years, remained pretty much unknown until he died. Did that hinder your research?

You’re right, Gino’s heroism was largely unknown. He never told anyone what he did and that’s what makes him so fascinating and honorable. He could have sat out the war, he could have accepted ribbons from Mussolini. But instead he risked his life and his family’s by helping children to get away from the fascists and even hiding a Jewish family in his home. Compare Gino’s quiet courage to so many people today who post on Instagram every single thing they do: if they cut into a chicken pot pie, they post it. As Gino said, some medals hang not on your jacket, but on your soul.

Wartime heroism: Josh St Clair as Bartali (yellow jersey), with the cast of Glory Ride

Cycling has been the subject of half-adozen stage productions in the UK over the last decade — with Maxine Peake’s Beryl our pick of the bunch — but no musicals of note. Were you worried that the drama at the core of Bartali’s story might be compromised or diminished by the addition of song?

We felt that adding songs would add passion and help the audience feel in their bones the danger and the stakes. Also songs stay with you in a way that dialogue does not. In Glory Ride, one of the lead characters Giorgio Nico (Daniel Robinson, with Loris Scarpa), sings ‘They Can Call Me Silent’. It’s a song about quiet courage and some audience members tell us they get choked up and that it stays with them after they leave the theatre. There’s a lyric in the song about being an unassuming underdog: “They jeer and tease, but in my quiet corner I’m Hercules.” And music helps keep the pace of a show; a ballad where two lovers gaze into each other’s eyes obviously feels different from a militaristic march.

A few years back cycling writer Herbie Sykes said that Bartali [with compatriot Fausto Coppi] were potent figures because cycling was so popular and “because they stood up at a time of great hardship, a time when Italians needed heroes”. And he believed that’s why there’s so much symbolism associated with them. Was that something you were aware of early on and keen to convey?

We learned how symbolic Gino and Coppi were for sportsmanship. There’s a classic photo of the two of them racing down a mountain, competing against each other, looking exhausted. But in the photo they hand a single bottle of water between each other. Some of my Italian friends think it’s one of the most poignant photos in the history of sport. In Gino’s case, he turned into a potent political symbol too. In 1948 Italy’s government was collapsing, one prominent leader was assassinated and the country was on the cusp of civil war. Gino started that year’s Tour de France badly and many commentators called on him to quit. But the prime minister called Gino and urged him to go on, to win so that Italians had one good thing to rally behind. Sure enough he won, uniting Italy and helping to prevent civil war. Again, Gino did not seek to play a political role, but when the challenge was thrust upon him, he pedalled harder.

A friend likened the comedic elements and your treatment of a serious subject like fascism to the way it’s handled in Taika Waititi’s film JojoRabbit, but that was produced many years after you wrote GloryRide — did you have inspirations, writers or performers, that guided or shaped the way you pitched the tone?

The comedy comes because it’s really a story about a heist, about fooling the fascists. It’s about unlikely characters who had nothing in common — a world champion athlete, a Catholic cardinal, an accountant and a painter. They could have lived their lives without ever speaking to one another or understanding one another. And yet now they have to figure out how to pull off one of the greatest cons of World War II. n Glory Ride is playing at the Charing Cross Theatre until 29 July. Mon-Sat at 7.30pm, with matinees Thurs and Sat at 2.30pm. London Cyclist readers can get 10% off tickets using code ‘GRCMAG’ at gloryridemusical.com.

Was there anything you felt was too sensitive to include? Or anything that you wished you’d been able to include but didn’t make the final cut?

Audience members have asked if we could add more scenes about the Giro, or plumb deeper into Gino’s relationship with his father. Of course, we’d love to tell you even more, but it would take more time. So please call Hollywood producers and demand we write a 12-hour miniseries!

We understand that several cast members are not only Italian but also cyclists — was that the original intention or merely fortuitous, and did that help bring nuance to the performance?

Over one-third of our cast is Italian, and, of course, they bring not just a sense of authenticity, but during rehearsals they shared their family histories. I think the audience can feel both the joy and the anguish that come when Italian cast members act out scenes that their grandparents and great-grandparents may have lived through. And because Italy has so many regions and dialects, we all learned about the diversity within the country. We have quite a few cyclists in the cast; some ride an hour to get to and from the show every day. Niall Sheehy has perfected a talent for gracefully swapping his sleek biking gear for a cardinal’s long, scarlet robe. Loris Scarpa, who plays Lorenzo and comes from Sardinia, rides a bike and plays the mandolin. Now that’s authenticity!