Theatre News

Driving Miss Daisy tours UK with Gwen Taylor & Don Warrington

Editorial Staff
London's West End

Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy will tour in the UK later this year, following its recent Whatsonstage.com Award-winning run in the West End.

The touring production will star Gwen Taylor (Coronation Street, Calendar Girls on tour) as Daisy Werthan, the 72 year-old widow who develops an unlikely friendship with her African-American chauffeur, Hoke Coleburn, played by Don Warrington (Rising Damp, Elmina’s Kitchen).

They will also be joined by Ian Porter (currently playing Slim in Of Mice and Men at the Watermill Theatre) taking on the role of Boolie Werthan, who hires Hoke to drive for his mother. David Esbjornson, who directed the West End run at Wyndham’s Theatre starring Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, again takes the helm.

Driving Miss Daisy will visit: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford (8-13 Oct), Croydon Ashcroft Theatre (15-20 Oct), Richmond Theatre (22-27 Oct), Bath Theatre Royal (29 Oct–3 Nov), Malvern Festival Theatre (5-10 Nov), Brighton Theatre Royal (12-17 Nov), Derby Theatre (19-24 Nov) and Southend Palace Theatre (26 Nov-1 Dec).

Alfred Uhry wrote Driving Miss Daisy in 1987, the same year it debuted Off-Broadway at the Playwrights Horizons Theatre. Two years later it was made into a film starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy, which won Uhry an Oscar for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ whilst the film received the ‘Best Film’ award. The 2011 West End revival was nominated for three 2012 Whatsonstage.com awards, with Vanessa Redgrave bagging the prize for ‘Best Actress in a Play’ for her role as Daisy.

– by Stephanie Soh