'Speed' review — this lively, high-velocity drama is a constantly surprising thrill ride

Read our review of Mohamed-Zain Dada's new play Speed, starring Nikesh Patel, now in performances at the Bush Theatre to 17 May.

Civilization is a delicate thing. That rather sizable truism underpins the sparky, appropriately high-velocity Speed, the latest play from Mohamed-Zain Dada, whose Royal Court entry Blue Mist was an Olivier nominee last year. He’s shifted venues this time round to the Bush, in the process giving that adventuresome address the liveliest offering it’s fielded since Shifters some 14 months ago.

The setting is the tellingly faceless basement of a low-rent Birmingham hotel (the vending machine doesn’t work until, well, you’ll see) where three reckless drivers have gathered for an awareness course presided over by the increasingly mysterious Abz (Nikesh Patel). All four characters are Asian, which turns out to be important to a narrative in which questions of identity are brought in varying ways to the fore.

“Driving is not a human right,” says facilitator Abz, who comes armed with a flip chart and clipboard and is quick to corral facts and figures to prove his point about the animal instincts that get unleashed behind the wheel.

The participants under his watch are an ingeniously conceived trio, who separately and together generate laughs in abundance that for some while threaten to wrongfoot spectators as to the play’s eventually grievous finish.

The entrepreneurial Faiza (Shazia Nicholls) deflects any enquiry as to her origins by insisting more than once that she is from St Albans, and end of story there. Enmeshed in a business deal requiring ready use of her phone, she’s not best pleased to be sequestered away from immediate contact.

Harleen (Sabrina Sandhu) is a nurse – “clap for carers” is the response when that bit of information gets delivered – possessed of limited tolerance for the Karens in her midst, whilst the youngest of the group is the lippy Samir (Arian Nik), who faces off against Abz in a showdown suggesting that road rage isn’t necessarily confined to the Park Lane roundabout. (That well-known site is one of many specifics anchoring a play that prompts laughs of recognition throughout.)

The idea, we’re told, is to build “mutual trust” amongst the quartet, even if suspicion takes the upper hand, not least when Abz keeps disappearing through a door from which the trio under his care find themselves at one point unable to exit. (Small wonder the nervily excitable Faiza has prison on the brain.)

XANA’s sound design, punctuated by aggressive bursts of noise whose reason for being gradually comes into focus, hints from the outset that all may not go well, and Milli Bhatia’s direction couples the likeability of the characters with a gathering sense of alarm.

Dada’s script, meanwhile, is engagingly witty throughout, whether scoring comic points off the likes of Osama bin Laden or noting the affinity between the Roman philosopher Seneca and the Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna.

Some may wonder at the powder keg unleashed at a climax that throws control of the room into chaos, and one or two moments – from Faiza in particular – skirt caricature. But the entire cast ably chart the play’s cunning course between contrasting moods, changing lanes, so to speak, with a skill their characters would envy.

Speed may allow one of its assemblage to catalogue society’s ills: treehuggers, potholes, and restaurant small plates amongst them. But the play itself is a genuine, always-engaging surprise: 80 clearsighted minutes, no interval, that cross the finish line with ease.

Speed is at the Bush Theatre to 17 May. Book Speed tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Photo credit: Speed (Photos by Richard Lakos)