Theatre Reviews: The Deep Blue Sea; Speed
Tragedy and satire meet at the edge of a breakdown
The plays I saw this week stretched to either side of the theatrical spectrum. One was very traditional in form and setting, and the other was far, far from it.
I also saw An Oak Tree at the Young Vic for a second time, but I’m still trying to find a way to talk about that without sounding pretentious.
The Deep Blue Sea - Theatre Royal Haymarket
by Terence Rattigan
Directed by Lindsay Posner
2 hours 30 minutes
Originally written in 1952, and revived in this production last year, The Deep Blue Sea is not the freshest play to be found on the West End in 2025. Set in a dingy one-bed flat in Ladbroke Grove, this is a play delivered with emotional restraint and free from unnecessary embellishment. The result is a moving, if not particularly thrilling, show that made my seatmate exclaim, “a real play at last!”.
I was drawn to this real play by the presence of Tamsin Greig in the lead role. Greig plays Hester, a woman we meet at the tail-end of an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Hester is living in sin with the foppish Freddie (Hadley Fraser), hiding from her husband (Nicholas Farrell), and generally being interfered with by a small cast of nosy neighbours. The play covers a full day as Hester is forced to reckon with the reality of staying alive and whether romance will sink or save her.
As a woman on the edge, Greig plays Hester with all the emotional fragility she can muster. She comes across as a woman resigned to her fate, drawn toward death more from resignation than desire to end things. While some of the younger cast struggle to make Rattigan’s period dialogue sound authentic, Greig never falters, and the core cast around her more than meet her level.
The show is quietly stolen by Finbar Lynch as a disgraced former physician offering Hester both medical treatment and unvarnished wisdom. At the play’s climax Lynch delivers a powerful speech from the floor of the flat, simultaneously empowering and anti-inspirational. It’s a beautiful moment in an ugly setting, delivered with frank intimacy.
What lets the play down is its scale, simultaneously too small and too long. The flat is authentically small but feels lost in the enormous confines of the Haymarket Theatre, barely filling the breadth and depth of the stage. And at 150 minutes in length, you really feel as though you’ve spent the whole day with poor Hester. That magical moment with Finbar Lynch comes after more than two hours of excellent, but slow-burning, drama.
The Deep Blue Sea is a proper play delivered by a terrific cast. It isn’t trying to reinvent or deconstruct theatre, and as a result is a rewarding but unexciting night out.
Seat: Upper Circle, C9 - £25
Because of the scale of the production I did feel a little far away. A perspex screen covers the bottom-right of the stage but is perfectly transparent and offers a final line of defence for anyone who topples down the stairs. No real complaints for this price in the West End.
Show: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)
Seat: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
The Deep Blue Sea runs until 21st June 2025.
Speed - Bush Theatre
by Mohamed-Zain Dada
Directed by Milli Bhatia
1 hour 20 minutes
Take the Circle Line three stops from Ladbroke Grove, exit at Shepherd's Bush Market and you’ll find yourself standing across the road from the beautiful redbrick exterior of the Bush Theatre. Housing two small stages and with a focus on staging new writing the Bush is one of London theatre’s hidden gems.
On the main stage on Saturday was the final two performances of Mohamed-Zain Dada’s Speed. The show is staged with the audience split apart and facing one another, with the action taking place in the perfect recreation of a hotel basement function room that bisected the theatre space. At one end sits a broken vending machine and a water cooler; at the other, a fish tank and well-thumbed flipchart.
As I took my seat for the penultimate performance I did my best to pretend not to notice Rose Matafeo and Alice Snedden (comedians and co-writers of BBC’s Starstruck) sat directly across the stage from me.
What brought Matafeo and Snedden to the Bush was presumably Starstruck’s own Nikesh Patel. Patel stars in Speed as Abz; a speed awareness course instructor on the verge of a nervous breakdown. With the support of the DVLA Abz has summoned Samir (Arian Nik), Harleen (Sabrina Sandhu), and Faiza (Shazia Nicolls) to a hotel basement in Birmingham as their final chance to avoid losing their driving licenses.
Patel plays Abz with just a hint of Nick Mohammed’s Mr Swallow. While he may be in charge of the course, he is certainly not in control of the room. As the play starts there were plenty of hearty laughs from the audience as what felt like a gentle observational comedy played out. Gradually flashes of something more sinister started to appear as the participants began to question why only British Asian drivers had been selected and calm and collected Abz started to unravel.
As the play accelerated towards the finish line the gentle comedy from the start had been thrown by the wayside. In its wake was something more extreme, more surreal, and infinitely more exciting. Patel’s Abz has transformed from a meek man hiding behind a clipboard to a terrifying figure of rage and frustration. I was seated right at the front, and at one point a chair slammed down so close to my face I felt the same unease as the characters onstage.
Speed is weird, funny, and exhilarating. At just 80 minutes, the show raced ahead faster than I could keep up. I can’t pretend I caught every message but, as the woman behind me who shouted out in agreement proved, it clearly struck a chord with those who needed it.
Seat: Stalls, AA10 - £15
The configuration of this theatre changes for every show so your experience may vary. This seat was slightly cheaper due to it being right at the front, and below the level of the stage. My eyes were level with the actors’ ankles but I wasn’t so close I couldn’t comfortably look up.
Show: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
Seat: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Speed has finished its run.