We round up the reviews for Benedict Lombe’s new play at the Bush Theatre until the 29th March.
WhatsOnStage: **** “Benedict Lombe, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Playwriting with Lava, returns to the Bush Theatre’s main space with this confident romance. Bush artistic director Lynette Linton directs snappily, with exacting attention for the couple’s echoing of each other, of their younger selves. Most affecting is how Cole and Agyepong’s characterisation stretches and flexes as Dre and Des age.”
Evening Standard: **** “Director Lynette Linton draws achingly subtle, detailed performances from her two leads, which showcase the fine grain of Lombe’s writing.”
London Theatre.co.uk: **** “The production makes a virtue of the minimal. Bush artistic director Lynette Linton lends her characteristically keen-eyed compassion to a traverse set-up courtesy of set designer Alex Berry – whose only drawback is bouts of inaudibility, especially near the beginning, when Dre in particular turns his back on one side of the house.”
The Guardian: **** “Cole, known better for his screen roles, proves he is as adept on stage, while Agyepong is full of fire. They capture the awkwardness of young love, and of what is unsaid when they meet years later. Sarcasm covers for teen shyness, sexual tension morphs into bathos, disagreements about Nigerian or Congolese music are proxy flirtations. There is ardour beneath it all and when the pair kiss, it feels real, giddy.”
Time Out: **** “Lombe’s script has you fighting, wholeheartedly for their already broken relationship. There are similarities to Nick Payne’s ‘Constellations’, and it has the sprawling scope of a love story that spans a lifetime. There’s a few tiny gripes: it might take a moment too long to kick into action; a revelation about Des appears to come from nowhere; we want more on their individual backstories. But Lombe is a beautiful, nuanced and soulful writer and this is a romance overflowing with heart.”
The Stage: **** “A tender and reflective romcom from Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning playwright Benedict Lombe.”
All That Dazzles: ***** “Lombe’s writing moves seamlessly in and out of flashbacks, finding a surprising number of natural segues between timelines that never feel forced or jarring. Her dialogue is refreshingly natural, with jabs and jokes flying thick and fast between Des and Dre, and this helps their relationship to feel genuine and fully realised.”
The Telegraph: **** “A rising star of British theatre, Benedict Lombe follows her lauded debut about black identity with a tender portrayal of human connection.”
Broadway World: **** “Shifters is strongest at its most comedic. It’s here where the audiences fall in love with the characters. Their verbal sparring makes it clear that despite everything that has changed, they are still the same 16-year-olds who came together at a debate club, enriching the play with a sense of nostalgia. However, their struggles to embrace their vulnerabilities mean that some of the more dramatic moments can feel slightly glossed over. “
The Reviews Hub: **** “Heather Agyepong as Des is brilliantly pitched, a sassy but intelligent and sensitive teenager whose need for Dre dawns on her over time while Tosin Cole’s Dre is always destined to love Des, sweetly nervous in her company and much attached to the place where they grew up. The play could spend a little more time on Des’ interior life – a hint of abuse that seems too lightly treated and too often the motivation for a woman’s reticence these days – yet the chemistry between them is what Shifters is all about and by the end, the audience has certainly decided whether mere biology or true love has brought them together.”
The Arts Dispatch.com: ***** “Lynette Linton also displays her undeniable talent here with how inventive she can be with just a few black boxes. The Bush Theatre has never failed to impress me with the ingenuity it presents within such consistently minimalistic design choices. This being one of the many reasons that Linton is so well suited to being its Artistic Director.”
To book tickets visit: https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/shifters/