Benedict Lombe’s Shifters transfers to the Duke of York’s Theatre to great effect
“Time is both moving and standing still”
It would be good to get to a place where stats like this aren’t needed but the fact remains that Shifters is but the third play written by a Black British female playwright to play the West End. Lombe announced herself with the magisterial Lava at the Bush a couple of years ago and Shifters transfers to the Duke of York’s Theatre from a successful run at that prodigious West London theatre in March of this year.
We first meet Dre and Des, Dream and Destiny to give them their full names, in their early 30s as they reconnect after a few years apart at the funeral of Dre’s grandmother. We then flicker back half a lifetime ago to their first meeting aged 16 in sixth form and from there, we get to explore the intimate details and intricacies of their friendship and relationship in the intervening years, shuffled in non-linear order.
There’s hints of Nick Payne’s evergreen Constellations in the sense of burgeoning possibilities but Lombe roots her central pair in a Black British reality that is undeniable. The dialogue she has written aims for a level of naturalism that is rarely seen onstage and delivered so well by Tosin Cole and Heather Agyepong, it breathes with realism in every stumble, every half-formed thought, every emotion vividly expressed.
Bush AD Lynette Linton directs with refreshing clarity, introducing Alex Berry’s traverse set into this West End venue to disrupt some of its austerity, Neil Austin’s lighting and Tony Gayle’s sound further enlivening the space. And as the chat moves from present to past, from pain to potential, covering topics from food, aliens and music to grief, suicide and sexual assault, the cumulative impact is immense.
