Shifters. Duke Of York’s Theatre.

Benedict Lombe’s tremendous could-have-been, should-have-been, rom-com Shifters enjoyed a sell-out run at the Bush Theatre earlier in the year and earns its well-deserved transfer to the Duke Of Yorks Theatre. Directed with immense empathy and granular attention to detail by Lynette Linton, the two-hander is only the third work by a Black British woman writer to gain a West Eng staging. The piece boasts performances of extraordinary charm from leads Tosin Cole and Heather Agyepong and unfolds with a kind of hard-edged poetic complexity not often associated with the genre.

Working class British-Nigerian Dre (Tosin Cole) and middle class British Congolese Des (Heather Agyepong) meet at a rural school and bond over a shared love for African music and the debating society. Joshing friendship turns to awkward, unspoken, adolescent longing, and then finally to romantic infatuation. Shifter’s first half is a slow burn, and in a piece of presumably conscious symmetry we are already almost exactly half-way through the show before seeing the first, tantalisingly wished-for kiss. The chemistry between the leads is palpable.

Dre oozes self-assured, sardonic charisma that hides hidden vulnerabilities and a sense of maternal abandonment. Des is artistic, lippy, argumentative, and prone to panic attacks (seemingly the consequence of dark events earlier in her childhood). Things go right for a while and then, as is rom-com’s wont, they don’t. The barrier to love is the duo’s shared inability to tell each other how they feel. “You didn’t stay” Dre says with bitter regretful anger. “You didn’t ask me” Des replies with an excruciating tug on the heartstrings. The souls are matched, if only these two would just sort themselves out.

Fast forward 16 years. It is 8 years since the couple have connected although each secretly keeps track of what the other is up to. Dre is now partner to Nina, a dad to a five-year old, and proud owner of his own restaurant in London. His food fuses Nigerian and Congolese cuisine, a culinary evocation of the cultural mix he shares with his much-missed former love. Des lives in New York and is more-or-less happily engaged to a Jazz musician called Travis. Her neurologist dad cannot quite get the idea she is a “concept artist” so tells friends she is a “conflict journalist” instead.

The death of Dre’s beloved grandmother’s brings the two together at her wake. Their old fizzing emotional electricity instantly revives. But Dre’s flight home is in three hours. Can the duo finally find a way to tell each other what they want?  Do they still want the same things? And can teen infatuation ever survive the complexities of adulthood?

Lombe’s narrative time shifts between events at and after Nana’s wake, and multiple periods in the duo’s relationship including teen parties, fresher’s week, university graduation, and flat sharing. It is a structure that brings to mind the time loops and divergences in Nick Payne’s Constellations and echoes that piece’s message about how crucial communication is to the dynamics of love and connection. There are shades here too of Netflix’s bittersweet, mega-hit series One Day with its glimpses into the complications, yearnings, and missteps in a life-long love affair. Lombe is a nuanced and affecting writer and Linton’s finely judged direction overflows with compassion for its characters

Alex Berry’s immaculate set, bare aside from Grandma’s black packing cases, places the action within a seemingly jumbled framework of glowing strip lights that evoke musical notation. The lights change colour to indicate when in the timeline that action takes place. White is for now, red for the teen years, pale blue for the characters’ individual recollections of events. The Duke Of Yorks’ has a bank of seating at the rear of the stage. The transverse format worked well in the intimacy of the Bush. Here the actors mostly play the to the much larger auditorium to the front, which perhaps leaves those behind less able to follow.

Shifter’s tells a love story that is contextualised around the cultural specificity of Black British protagonists, and which celebrates the cadences and rhythms of Black British speech. Yet the story is universal too, a salutation to the human ability to love and forgive. The ending, potentially difficult for piece that both sits within and chafes against the rom-com genre, feels perfect. Gripes? Elements of both characters’ backstories feel a little too contrived to explain their mutual hesitance to commit, and perhaps the show could lose 15 minutes. But these are minor objections set against so much to admire.

Writer:  Benedict Lombe

Director:  Lynette Linton