The week in theatre: Speed; Shanghai Dolls – review

9 hours ago 4

My attitude to stage design changed about 15 years ago when I was on the judging panel for the Evening Standard theatre awards. Advocating one designer, I was met by an objection from another critic: “You can’t see what he does.” That was, of course, the best argument for my chap winning. Suddenly I realised what should have been self-evident: the best design does not have evident designs on its audience.

I remembered that exchange when watching Mohamed-Zain Dada’s light-footed new play, Speed. Tomás Palmer’s design scarcely seems arranged: it is simply a place in which things happen. In a hotel meeting room, the air hangs heavy. Alarmingly large goldfish gloom around an aquarium; a very non-speedy vending machine is made to yield a neat joke; a serving hatch covered in a metal screen delivers a rattling fright. Every object helps emphasise the action and makes it register quickly.

A Deliveroo driver, a nurse and an entrepreneur attend a speed awareness course. They have all been fined for aggressive driving. They are all British South Asian.

A jumpy young man (Nikesh Patel) is in charge. He has a hokey line in public information videos (“We want to get inside of you,” he proclaims, showing himself peering into the bonnet of a car), which makes him look dopey. Actually he is disturbed. A dark secret, which pounces on him in mysterious blackouts, moves the plot from light comedy to shock.

Speed is perfect for the talents of exciting young director Milli Bhatia. Her productions are fuelled by the rapidity with which conversation is spat out and scenes scud into each other. Six years ago she brought a new theatrical language to the Royal Court in Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, a mesmeric exploration of fevered friendship and social media. Now she points up the layers in Dada’s drama. His look at speed (non drug-related) at first seems, in a drama where cars can be taken to define character, straightforwardly about driving fast. It twists into something different; a shrewd look at too-swift assumptions and insidious racism.

In a sharp, finely defined cast, Shazia Nicholls is outstanding as the entrepreneur, glossy in a silk blouse, eager to promote her company Hot Girls Henna, keen to emphasise she comes from St Albans, quick to push forward – and to crumble at a touch of criticism. “You don’t really look Pakistani,” she is told. “Oh thank you,” she purrs – confident that this is the best compliment.

Jean Chan’s design for Amy Ng’s new play is made to be noticed, made to be read (literally – there are words on the backdrop). It evokes a background, floats a theme. It is more informative about an important subject than is Ng’s dialogue.

Shanghai Dolls is the story of Jiang Qing and Sun Weishi, creatures of talent and ambition hampered by their gender. Qing was the actor who became the wife of Mao Zedong and started the Cultural Revolution. Weishi, the adopted daughter of premier Zhou Enlai, was the first female theatre director in China.

Drawing on memoirs, a few letters and oral histories – documentation is scant, evidence has often been destroyed – and adding her own speculation, Ng imagines some 30 years of friendship and rivalry between the two women beginning in 1935, ending in imprisonment and death. Their biographies are intertwined with Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, in which the future Madame Mao starred as Nora, the wife who slams the door on domesticity. Women are not free, Ng’s drama rightly declares, simply because they carry guns.

Gabby Wong and Millicent Wong huddle together against a shaded backdrop of green doors in Shanghai Dolls.

Chan’s design invites the audience into individual circumstances and large-scale political movements. The stage is flanked by tarnished green doors with gridded windows – the sort you might see on changing rooms at the side of a marvellous swimming pool: here are the colours of China, here are Nora’s doors waiting to be slammed. Behind them, posters and videos track years of Chinese history, through invasion and revolution.

History, metaphor and terrific detail are lined up, waiting to set the stage alive: Madame Mao ends her days in a rag doll factory; there is a sly theatrical in-joke about macaroons.

But Ng’s puny exchanges cower under the mass of material, and in Katie Posner’s jerky production every dilemma is yelled out. Gabby Wong’s Quin and Millicent Wong’s Weishi move stiffly (much flinging wide of arms) and speak stiltedly. I wish I thought this was part of a plan: to show how these extraordinary women were treated like marionettes.

Meanwhile an exceptional piece of public art is moving through the Congo rainforest. Marvellous lifesize animal puppets – beasts both fragile and ferocious – are setting out on a 20,000km journey towards the Arctic Circle, drawing attention to climate change, the composition of the troop changing along the way. Produced by the creators of the refugee puppet Little Amal, this is one of the most vital theatrical events of 2025. Everyone should follow The Herds.

Star ratings (out of five)
Speed ★★★★
Shanghai Dolls ★★