REVIEW: Driving Miss Daisy at Chichester Festival Theatre
![Sian Phillips and Derek Griffiths in Driving Miss Daisy. Picture by Nobby Clark](https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/webimg/legacy_oak_99940868.jpg?crop=3:2,smart&trim=&width=640&quality=65&enable=upscale)
![Sian Phillips and Derek Griffiths in Driving Miss Daisy. Picture by Nobby Clark](/img/placeholder.png)
Staged against an open white set that successfully conveys both the extreme heat of the Georgian summer and the searing cold of the winter it’s a simple study of prejudice, understanding and friendship.
The cast of three is mighty.
Teddy Kempner – a ‘You-Won’t-Know-The-Name-But-You’ll-Know-The-Face’ actor – plays Boolie, son of a difficult Jewish mother who – despite her own views – needs a driver to get her around. Enter Derek Griffiths, the stalwart of my generation’s children’s TV, as Hoke, hired to drive Miss Daisy. And drive her he does, both from place-to-place and round the twist.
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Hide AdGriffiths is astonishingly brilliant. He steers the humour – and the play most certainly is funny – but just when you think you have the measure of the piece, it sticks the emotional knife in.
As Miss Daisy, Siân Phillips (of the gloriously angular face) is a dream. Simultaneously a pillar of self-assured strength and as weak as ice on an August afternoon, her portrayal of Daisy’s descent into the fractured fragility of old-age – the emotional knife I mentioned earlier – is agonisingly difficult to watch – but most definitely deserves to be seen.
Until Saturday.