Comedy drama of warp-speed Desi drivers

Photo of Nikesh Patel in Speed: Richard Lakos (Also starring Shazia Nicholis, Arian Nik and Sabrina Sandhu)

Daniel Nelson

Welcome to the driving licensing agency’s new pilot scheme - a national  all-day speed awareness course designed to eliminate aggressive driving.

Your instructor is Abz, a speed awareness facilitator and anger manager specialist.

We’re all set.

Wait a moment, though. Isn’t it a little odd that like Abz, the first three drivers on the course are British Asians: a  delivery driver, a nurse and a businesswoman?

Gradually other oddities become noticeable in the Holiday Inn basement, including Abz’s own behaviour. Something is upsetting him. 

Clearly driven by an obsessive mission to teach safe driving, his concern is as much for the drivers’ futures as for other road users; desperate to force the trio to confront and control their anger, he puts them through a series of tests and role-plays.

The stories behind their anger are forced out. The characters initially verge on caricatures, but through their words and eyes you begin to see the pressures that led them to drive dangerously fast.

Playwright Mohamed-Zain Dada’s dialogue is as fast as their driving: it’s funny and dramatic and moving. At the same time he ratchets up the drama  as Abz’s mysteriously escalating agitation hits warp speed, triggering a violent response from his three miscreants, before his own story comes spilling out.

The 90-minute confrontation changes gear from zingy one-liners through menace bordering on farce to hopeless heartbreak, playing with stereotypes along the way. It seems to be about road safety, but it’s really about Desi lives in Britain. Hugely entertaining
* Speed , £10-£35, is at the Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ until 17 May. Info: Bush