Featured Image: Tom Dixon
“I remember cycling back after a show at Furzey Gardens, through the New Forest, with one of the other actors and we had to stop as 50 ponies silently crossed the road in front of us - it was beautiful, a magical moment.”
Shakespearean cycling actors, The HandleBards aren’t your regular touring theatre company. You won’t find them bombing up and down motorways in an unmarked Vauxhall Vivaro. And you won’t find them fighting for space on busy commuter trains, loaded with props and costumes, either.
This troupe pedals from show to show, linking hundreds of performances together in a May-September, one thousand-mile odyssey around the UK, carrying everything they need to perform their distinct brand of “energetic, charmingly chaotic and environmentally sustainable Shakespeare.”
Carradice has long been a supporter of The HandleBards. And so we thought it was high time we sat down with HandleBards Producer, Will Orton to understand what life on the road is like and show our general ineptitude of all things Shakespearean.
Image: HandleBards Comedy of Errors Company
A potted history of the HandleBards
Like all good ideas, The HandleBards story began over a pint or three in the local pub. Will picks up the story. “It all started with a love of Shakespeare and a nifty little pun. The original HandleBards were four friends, Paul, Callum, Tom and Callum, who pedalled Twelfth Night to over twenty different venues in 2013.”
After that first season, venues they’d visited kept asking if they could return the following year. Thanks to this groundswell of interest The HandleBards were very much up and running. Though Paul and Tom have now stepped back from running the day-to-day, they remain onboard as executive producers. Will is the only full-time staff member with a merry band of rotating actors making up the rest of the company throughout the year.
Here’s Will again. “The typical makeup of the company (on their summer cycle tour) tends to be three or four actors and then one non-performing member of staff - the tour manager. They're the logistic person on the road, making sure things tick along.”
Planning a season
Cycling, acting and Shakespeare are quite the Venn diagram of interests so do the HandleBards include cycling proficiency or interest as part of the company’s audition process? “No, not really,” Will explains. “There's a baseline level of fitness that they need, but I think that’s something that you can gain fairly quickly because the mileage each day isn't huge. On average over the tour, it's usually around 30 miles a day, with days off in between. Ultimately you don’t have to be Mark Cavendish to do it.”
Will continues, “If you look at the training actors have, they become extraordinarily adaptable.” That’s not to say that The HandleBards throw their would-be actors straight into the big wide world without any training or preparation. Ahead of the tour “we’ll teach them how to manoeuvre (two cyclists ride with trailers), how to ride safely in busy environments and how to perform a basic M check on their bike ahead of that day’s ride.”
Then there’s the non-acting, tour manager. Here’s Will again, “we’ll train the tour manager on some of the more intricate issues (and fixes) that could arise on the road.”
The HandleBards run a fleet of Pashley’s -; solid, dependable bikes with reassuring steering and comfortable geometry. A Shimano Alfine hub takes care of shifting duties. Will, someone with over 10 years of experience as a bike mechanic (and far more knowledge of Sturmey Archer than he’d care to remember), explains that this setup was chosen for its durability, longevity and range but also because changing gear is simpler than a 2x system - helpful for an actor who is perhaps getting their first taste of touring by bike.
With bikes prepped, actors chosen, the show written and rehearsals planned, Will begins the laborious process of designing a run of shows that not only makes commercial sense but is also doable by bike.
“It’s wildly complicated.” Will muses. He’s right - not only does he have to consider distance between shows, but there’s also elevation and route quality to consider too. “It has to be sustainable from a working hours perspective,” he confirms.
Because the venues vary from year to year, no two routes are the same. So every year Will gets a lovely task, “such as figuring out how we get from Barnsley to Rotherham in a safe effective manner!” Typically the route begins in London before heading down to the South West. From there venues are located in Oxfordshire, the Cotswolds, before the HandleBards pedal to the northwest, over to Yorkshire through Northumberland to the Scottish borders. Unfortunately, there’s never been a completely circuitous tour. As Will says “there's usually enough venues to get up the country but not enough for the return leg.”
Image: Danford Showan
Routing tools like Google Maps have come a long way since Will first started designing routes in 2018. “Back then Google Maps had a pathological desire to send you down the Grand Union Canal. It's not too bad if you've got an unladen bike, but when you’re riding a bike loaded with panniers or you’re carrying a trailer, it's a nightmare because the surface is rubbish and then there are all the obstructions, like gates, that you can't get around.” These days, Will uses bike navigation app Ride with GPS to plan the routes.
As Will recognises all of this is a far cry from touring in a van. Three to four-hour drives between shows by van are usual for most touring theatre companies - longer, if people share the driving. No such luck for Will and his merry band of actors. But that’s all part of the fun…
Life on the road
As every commuter cyclist will tell you, riding a bike to get from A to B, completely revolutionises how you perceive journeys. In one fell swoop, a humdrum hour becomes a chance for adventure. At the very same time, arriving by bike somehow creates a bond with others that no other form of transport can.
Will agrees. “On tour, we'd stop for lunch at a cafe and people are like what are you doing? We’d explain and they’d be so interested. Some bakeries and the like would even give us extra buns after we tell them what we’re up to!”
With years of touring in his legs, does Will have a memorable day riding with the HandleBards? One particular day sticks in his mind - but initially, it was for all the wrong reasons. “We were riding from Dorchester - or somewhere nearby - to Lyme Regis along the Jurassic coast which is very hilly. We set off early as we knew it was a long ride with plenty of elevation.”
“We were cycling along and started climbing the first massive hill of three en route and then this thick mist descended. It was very eerie. And then the rain started and it's torrential - non-stop rain for what felt like hours. Everyone was soaked and we slowed to a crawl. We were performing that night, way behind schedule and we still needed to stop for lunch! We got to Bridport, still a decent ride to Lyme Regis, and I spotted a venue that we were not due to be at for another two months! So I parked up the bikes, ran in and said “ "Hello, we're the HandleBards! We're early!"
Will smiles as he tells us how the venue staff kicked into action, offered them a place to store their bikes and trailers (one hazard of touring with two trailers in tow is that finding secure bike storage is a constant battle), grabbed the pedalling actors’ lunch and provided a welcoming place for tired bodies and minds.
Image: Rahpether Bridge Photography
What started as the day from hell, turned into a memorable day for all the right reasons. “We were coming off the world’s ridiculous warmups and it ended up being one of the best shows of the tour - I think we all slept like babies that night!”
Whilst life on the road can be tough, like any touring cyclist, The HandleBards know there’s usually a silver lining. “There are some beautiful rides that we do - just so stunning - and bits of the country that we wouldn't normally get to ride across.”
Monmouthshire, Wales is somewhere which Will recalls as one of his favourite places to ride. From Usk to Chepstow, he remembers “long gentle uphills, sweeping valleys and beaming smiles.”
The theme of bikes and cycling doesn’t finish when The HandleBards appear on stage either. Over the years, everything from old handlebars to cycle caps and old headtube badges has been used by the HandleBards during performances.
With their limitation of what props and set pieces they can carry, the bicycles (usually the largest prop available to the actors) are included in every show in one form or another. Here’s Will again, “in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck who can circumnavigate the world in 40 minutes, will get on the bike and cycle around the audience.”
However, those stripped-back sets are no detriment to the shows HandleBards put on. Will credits them as part of the reason for their success. “We don't have many props, we really focus on storytelling and our actors' performances.”
Sustainability and The HandleBards
Although sustainable by its very nature, The HandleBards aim to leave no stone unturned in their quest for the lowest-impact show possible. They have introduced things like compostable or recyclable stages and ensure any van journeys required at the end of a tour are completed in an electric van where possible. Often the company buys second-hand costumes and as a first port of call, reuses items they have in storage first. They are also looking to implement The Theatre Green Book, a best practice guide for the industry, in their productions to make all aspects of their work as green as possible.
Our thanks go to Will for tearing himself away from Ride With GPS’ route planner to talk to us! The HandleNards have just announced their show for 2025. Tickets for Much Ado About Nothing are on sale here.
