Education to Avoid Road Rage
“This right here, what we’re doing, it’s bigger than what your little brains can even conceive of. this will save your life. Save the life of others around yo.”
Abz
Set in one of those anonymous hotel basements, hired out for training, in an excellent set by Tomás Palmer is a training course for drivers. Abz (Nitesh Patel) note, not ever Abdul or Abdullah, is the man in charge. His three participants are all of South Asian heritage, Samir (Arian Nik) Fazia (Shazia Nicholls) and Harleen (Sabrina Sandhu).
All three have committed some kind of driving offence and already each have nine penalty points on their licence and getting 12 means you are banned from driving for a while. Not losing their licence is the carrot which keeps these three in the course.
We learn about each trainee in turn. Fazia is an entrepreneur in fashion, a CEO, she tells us and being able to drive is crucial to her business. Harleen is an exhausted NHS nurse and not being able to drive would add hours to her travelling time each day. When she says she’s a nurse, Fazia starts to clap, as they did for the NHS during Covid, cheap approval and not well received by Harleen. Samir is a delivery driver, and former boy racer, so his licence equates to his employment.
What Abz is there to do is to get each to look at what led up to the driving offence in a genuine attempt for them to explore and face the root cause of their anger. It is an ambitious goal. What emerges is Abz’s deep motivation for helping these people rehabilitate as he struggles with the result of his own road rage, and faces a breakdown because of the blame and self-recrimination he feels every day.
There is mention of the Jihari Window and the Jihari Mirror, tools which help awareness of self in interpersonal relationships. I had never heard of this concept and still don’t really understand why Abz keeps disappearing from his teaching group leaving the class confused. In role play Abz tries to teach them how to de-escalate situations where anger has taken over.
Nobody can get any phone reception in the hotel basement but there is an amusing attempt when Samir offers to lift Faiza towards the ceiling.
There are surprises towards the end of the play which I cannot, in all fairness, reveal. There are many interesting ideas in Mohamed-Zain Dada’s play Speed. It is interesting to reflect on them after seeing, although they might have been difficult to tackle during the play itself. Xana’s music is unsettling and the darkness difficult, with explosive lighting and flashes by Jessica Hung Han Yun, as Abz starts to unravel.
The performances from all four, skilfully directed by Milli Bhatia, are largely believable and Naz Patel’s journey from hopefully helping his class to breakdown is memorable.
Production Notes
Speed
Written by Mohamed-Zain Dada
Directed by Milli Bhatia
Cast
Starring:
Arian Nik
Nikesh Patel
Sabrina Sandhu
Shazia Nicholls
Creatives
Director: Milli Bhatia
Designer: Tomás Palmer
Movement Director: Theophilus O Bailey
Lighting Designer: Jessica Hung Han Yun
Composer and Sound Designer: Xana
Fight Director: Bret Yount
Information
Running Time: One hour 30 minutes without an interval
Booking to 17th May 2025
Theatre:
The Bush Theatre
7 Uxbridge Rd
Website:
bushtheatre.co.uk
Tube Shepherd’s Bush Market
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Bush Theatre
on 10th April 2025