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Driving Miss Daisy, Wyndham's, London

07.10.11

It’s a spare piece, travelling from 1948 to the early 1970s in brief episodic scenes that sketch in the changing outside world. On one road trip Hoke is unable to use the garage bathroom because of his colour; in 1958 Miss Daisy’s synagogue is bombed for supporting the Civil Rights Movement; Boolie is scared to attend a talk by Martin Luther King in case his business clients disapprove. It is too slight, it feels choppy in places and it drives perilously close to sentimentality. The real interest is in the evolving friendship between the two stubborn old souls at its heart, and this is beautifully drawn in David Esbjornson’s production.

Redgrave begins the piece at her majestic best. Advised by Boolie (a droll Boyd Gaines) that she has become an insurance liability, she whisks eggs vehemently, as if the innocent cake mixture had stolen her independence. She treats Hoke first with haughty indifference, then with suspicion, then with impatience, arguing doggedly that he has lost the way although she had the map upside down. Jones matches her magnificently with a dry wit and a deep-seated self-respect that eventually erupts into full-blown anger.

Source: Financial Times