Review Roundup: What Did The Critics Think of The West End Transfer of SHIFTERS?

Written by Benedict Lombe and directed by Lynette Linton, Shifters has now opened at thr Duke of York's Theatre after a highly successful run at the Bush Theatre earlier this year.

Starring Heather Agyepong and Tosin Cole, Shifters is a beautifully intoxicating and relatable reminder of the enduring power of memory and young love. A universal story, full of heart, but what did the critics think?

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Aliya Al-Hassan: BroadwayWorld: Both actors are excellent individually, although the vocal volume needs to be turned up a little at points. However, it is when they come together that something almost magical occurs. The chemistry between them is utterly convincing; every word they say and move they make is believable. Director Lynette Linton ensures that, for the length of the production, the huge range and depth of emotions the actors convey literally pours off the stage.

Tom Wicker: The Stage: Heather Agyepong and Tosin Cole, both returning from the original production, make every line sing: they’re hugely funny, but teetering on the edge of heartbreak. Cole brings easy charm to Dre and a faltering smile that speaks volumes. Agyepong’s Des bristles with self-protection, but also a compassionate curiosity that cracks her own defences.

Adam Bloodworth: City AM: Shock, horror: Dre and Des feel like two Black Britons who could feasibly exist, and we’re living in an age where that itself is ground-breaking on major West End stages. Lombe’s writing also doesn’t play by the rules: it feels bravely representative of real speech, and not ‘real’ speech for the stage but properly real, messy everyday language. Half-formed ideas conflate different points as the continually self-questioning duo deliver, then go back on, thought trails as funny as they are vivid. The predominantly Black audience laughs almost constantly in moral support.

Fiona Mountford: iNews: Agyepong and Cole make for a terrific pairing, confidently and fluidly shepherded by Linton. His Dre has sad eyes but easy and honest charm, while her Des is sharp and spiky, with well-honed defence mechanisms and enough self-awareness to understand that success, academic or professional, can sometimes be achieved as part of a quest to avoid something else.

Alice Saville: The Independent: Lombe’s play is full of meditations on memory. We’re told that first love makes an especially deep dent on our brains, and that events from our past get distorted to fit the narratives we tell ourselves in the present. Those touches of neuroscience are echoed both in Alex Berry’s synapse-like neon lit set design and in the play’s structure, which skips restlessly between past and present, blurring them together as it builds to an intriguingly ambiguous ending.

John Cutler: The Reviews Hub: Lombe’s narrative time shifts between events at and after Nana’s wake, and multiple periods in the duo’s relationship including teen parties, freshers’ 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.

Shifters is at the Duke of York's Theatre until 12 October

Photo Credits: Marc Brenner

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