There Ought To Be Clowns: Review: How I Learned To Drive, Southwark Playhouse

I’ve always liked Olivia Poulet as an actor but after seeing her starring turn as Li’l Bit in Paula Vogel’s How I Learned To Drive, I’m really rating her now as one not to ignore. It helps that Vogel’s play is supremely well-written, skilfully questioning preconceptions about sexually abusive relationships and their ghastly dynamic through a playful format which manages to layer in humour and pathos to prevent it from being a truly dark night of the soul.

It doesn’t mean that this is by any means an easy watch. We see Poulet’s 40-year-old Li’l Bit narrate the experiences of her childhood both as a young girl and as a teenager in a backwoods Maryland town with a great sense of a natural-born raconteur. It’s hard not to be seduced by the stories that roll from her tongue but we soon come to taste the sour beneath the whiskey-heavy breath as the complexity of her relationship with her Uncle Peck slowly comes to light.

Jack Sain’s production also assists in maintaining this careful balance, Katharine Heath’s Americana-inspired design and the ensemble playing of the wryly comic family figures both nodding to the nostalgic feel, whilst William Ellis builds a horrifyingly compelling persona to the war vet uncle whose demands during their driving lessons underscore the harrowing emotional neglect at the heart of the tale. Urgently powerful but never overbearing - highly recommended.