The Beautiful, Messy Love of Shifters

Benedict Lombe’s non-linear romance is the right play at the right time

This piece is taking me by surprise a little bit because oddly enough, I didn’t think I’d be writing about Shifters.

Maybe it’s because I don’t see myself as much of a reviewer, or because my feelings about the show are largely positive so I assumed I wouldn’t have anything unique to say, but I was largely content to let the real reviewers handle this one and continue my piece ranking the Strawhat Pirates by rom-com lead potential.

And yet here I am with sh*t to say about a great show.

It’s funny that Tosin Cole has starred in both Shifters and as the 13th Doctor’s (sorely underused) companion (the Shifters program credits him as the Doctor’s “assistant” which is offensive) because while I sat in the audience, enjoying the opening night of the play’s West End run, I couldn’t help but be reminded of an iconic Doctor Who quote.

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect. But actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.”

If you’ve had the pleasure of watching Shifters either during its sold-out run at Bush Theatre or its current West End run at The Duke of York Theatre, you might understand why this quote comes to mind. For me, the overwhelming message that I came away with is that the journey to love is rarely linear, nor is it perfect. It’s more like a big, messy ball of wibbly wobbly, lovey-dovey stuff.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Shifters follows Dre (Tosin Cole) and Destiny (Heather Agyepong), two British-African South Londoners whose paths cross at school and who spend the next two decades coming together and falling apart.

That’s pretty much the most information I can give to sum up the show without spoiling it or giving too much away since this is a spoiler-free review.

Speaking as someone who has a huge soft spot for Black love stories (especially funny ones), everything I’d heard about this play made it sound like it was made for me. I’d seen the posters around all year, and had friends recommend it to me over and over, so I went into this one with high expectations and they were largely met, there’s a lot to love about this one.

Plus I saw Little Simz, that was really cool.

So let’s get into it.

The Staging

The first thing that jumped out at me when watching Shifter’s was its staging and direction (we’ll get to the lighting). The restricted space in which our two characters move around is kinda reminiscent of a sandbox, as if the entirety of their world, everything that matters in those moments is contained within those four corners. Lynette Linton’s direction is endlessly effective, the staging can feel cluttered and claustrophobic as Dre and Des dance around it, expressing equally cluttered thoughts and being kept in each other’s orbit, even in moments where they desperately don’t want to be. It’s the perfect stage for a play that’s so raw, intimate, and engaging.

THE LIGHTING

It sounds weird considering my loud obsession with Black love stories, but by far the aspect of this show that I was most looking forward to seeing in person was the lighting. Neil Austin’s light design coupled with Linton’s direction is one of the highlights of the show, the lights dangle from the ceiling, sometimes looking like stars but often encompassing our main characters, providing clarity, colour, and emotion to the scenes. In an era where television and movie productions are sloooowly learning how to light darker skin, it’s genuinely breathtaking at times to see our two dark-skin leads lit in such beautiful, subtle ways. But its not just for the aesthetics. In a play that relies so heavily on shifting times and perspectives, the colour of the lighting serves as something of a narrative compass, helping to remind you where exactly we are in their ever-changing lives.

The Dialogue

Having inhaled as many Black romance movies and books as I have, one of the issues I’ve often had with them is the dialogue. I sometimes find the dialogue within Black love narratives to be a bit too try-hard when it comes to how their characters talk; whether it be by leaning a bit too hard into grandiose overly-poetic soliloquies, speaking too bluntly to the audience about “the issues”, trying to feign reliability through generic jokes about African culture, or (in the specific case of Black British stories) leaning too heavily on AAVE (African American Vernacular English for those of you that managed to dodge 30% of Twitter discourse). There are so many times in the past I’ve come away from these stories wishing that the writers could accurately capture how we talk to each other (stick around if you want to know which project nails this*), and I largely didn’t have this issue with Shifters.

While the show does have a few moments of slightly clunky diasporic jousting and features two of my personal pet peeves (2nd-person narration and having a Black character use the phrase “Black bodies”), it’s impossible not to be charmed by every interaction between Des and Dre. The dialogue between them is hilarious, devastating, brutal at times, and there were lines that captured the depth and beauty of their feelings so succinctly that you could hear a sharp intake of breath or a widespread “aaaaaw” from the audience I was watching with, but it did this while at all times sounding like real people talking to each other. What’s most impressive, however, is how accurately Lombe’s script captures the flirtatious verbal back-and-forth between two Black *🇬🇧British🇬🇧* adolescents in a way that many other projects fail to do.

While I would say that there are moments of important character exposition that are maybe rushed through a bit or unsubtly thrown at the audience a bit suddenly, the writing of Shifters is, by and large, a triumph.

The Music

I won’t say too much about the music here because I feel that talking specifically about the needle drops might spoil it for those who haven’t watched. What I will say is that I really enjoy the role that music plays in this show. Music is important to Dre and Des in the same ways that it’s important to us; providing fond or painful memories of their past, providing a constant point of connection between the two of them, setting the scene, and symbolizing the broadening their horizons as they starting to rub off on each other and understand the other’s perspective. It’s really well done and I can’t wait to vibe to the official Shifters playlist.

Tosin Cole and Heather Agyepong

Simply put: Shifters’ two leads should and hopefully will be frontrunners for Olivier Awards.

I’ve seen quite a few plays this year, including one with Sir Ian McKellen, and I can safely say that Cole and Agyepong give the best performances of any show I’ve enjoyed recently (which is saying a lot because I love Magneto, the catty b*tch). They’re both limitlessly charismatic, hilarious, subtle, they nail every nuance written into their characters and their own little idiosyncracies and performance styles enable them to lend a bit more colour and dimension to what’s written on the page as any great actor should.

I’ve known that Cole is a special actor maybe since he made me genuinely care about his very underwritten character on Doctor Who, but I don’t think I was prepared for how effectively he could switch between Dre’s charming likeability, quick wit, mixed with this trademark Yoruba audacity and the deep insecurity, grief, and vulnerability hidden behind his character’s playfulness.

Agyepong is just as magnificent, perfectly delivering a character whose mind is constantly in a million different places and possibilities. She expertly brings to life Des's intelligence, stubbornness, and playfulness while also capturing her deep trauma, her regret, and confusion over her feelings. The two performers dance around each other in perfect synchronization, their manic chemistry is the beating heart of the show and this just furthers a general thought I’ve had lately that we’re truly witnessing somewhat of a golden age of Black talent within the media industry (largely because we’re finding more routes to force the mainstream to see us).

(Also I recently found out that Ashley Joseph is the understudy for Dre, man I wish you guys could’ve seen ACTing Up, funniest live show ever.)

Timey Wimey Lovey Dovey

The point I want to finish on is obviously the most important when discussing the merits and pitfalls of a love story: the romance. I think Shifters does a really great job of telling the love story that Lombe wants to tell.

This is very specific wording and probably sounds like quite muted praise considering what’s preceded it but let me explain.

The plot of Shifters itself isn’t particularly new or groundbreaking, it’s the well-trodden romantic trope of two people who meet in their youth and spend years of their lives separating, coming back together, grappling with their feelings for each other, and ultimately struggling to find the right time to get out of their own way and be with each other, it’s something we’ve seen before. I also don’t think that Lomba’s script is trying to blow our minds with a perfectly plotted “love triumphs over all” show-stopper that will make me believe in love again after sitting through season 4 of The Umbrella Academy (no spoilers but ew man).

The reason I say that it does a great job of telling the story that Lombe wants to tell is that, to me, Shifters is a very simple story about how complicated love can be. The show manages to be clever without trying to play in our faces because it uses the passage of time to show us how our characters grow with, without, and because of each other. By constantly shifting the points in their lives, Lombe creates both in us and in the characters this sense of chaos, at points we’re uncertain of exactly where they are in life, only to be shocked to see how their circumstances have changed and that’s just so messy and fitting.

In Des and Dre, we have imperfect protagonists who start the play with a litany of problems, and end it having grown and developed but still in possession of a slightly different litany of problems because people and love are complicated.

The reason I begin this review by saying that Shifters is in many ways the right play at the right time for many of us is that in an era where various factors (insert rant about capitalism and the manosphere here) are providing barriers to love, we’re given characters who don’t necessarily figure it all out, sure they grow and change because of each other, but love doesn't provide the easy fix for them as people. Des and Dre share a messy love story that doesn’t happen in the right order and I think that’s a perfect representation of how love isn’t linear and we shouldn’t expect it to be because we as people aren’t linear. The chemistry and performances of the leads combine beautifully with the lighting, the direction, the staging, the writing, and the hair to give us a lovely West End romance that everyone should see.

*Rye Lane btw