Idris Elba, Maya Jama and Little Simz announced as new producers on West End play Shifters.
Award-winning actor Idris Elba, broadcaster and entrepreneur Maya Jama and Brit Award and Mercury Prize-winning musician and actor Little Simz have been announced as producers for the West End Transfer of Bush Theatre’s smash hit production of Shifters.
These powerhouse names from across the worlds of stage, television, film and music join forces with Eleanor Lloyd Productions, Chuchu Nwagu Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions to bring Benedict Lombe’s intoxicating new romance to London’s West End following its sold out run at the Bush Theatre earlier this year. Directed by Lynette Linton, the play runs for a strictly limited 9 week season with previews from 12 August, the official opening night on 21 August and running until 12 October.
The powerful trio of new producers are announced alongside a brand new West End initiative which will champion Black British creatives with the launch of a pop-up bookshop dedicated to uplifting and showcasing the canon of Black British playwriting, literature and poetry. The Shifting The Narrative Bookshop, in partnership with Nick Hern Books, ATG Entertainment West End Creative Learning, Hachette UK, and Pan Macmillan, and in support of Free Books Campaign, Black Minds Matter UK, and Sistah Space, will be stocked with titles that shift the narrative of Blackness away from trauma, and instead focus on Black joy, love, futurism and celebration.
Shifters is this summer’s sizzling romantic stage play starring Heather Agyepong and Tosin Cole, Both reprise their electrifying performances, which received critical acclaim in the original Bush Theatre production. Previews for Shifters commence on Monday 12 August with tickets from £20. For the first four weeks of the production, 50% of tickets will be available at £40 or under.
This epic and universal love story is ultimately about the enduring power of memory and first love. Meet Dre and Des, they are young, gifted, Black. He stayed. She left. Years later they come crashing back into each other’s lives, carrying new secrets and old scars. Caught in the space between memory and reality, they struggle to navigate the shifting borders that threaten to rewrite their past and reshape their future.
Book your tickets now and get ready to fall for this “tender, cosmic and cleverly unpredictable love story that will leave you wishing for a sequel” (The Stage).
Shifters: 12 August 2024 - 12 October 2024
Duke of York’s Theatre, St Martin's Lane, London, WC2N 4BG
Mondays to Saturdays at 7.30pm
From 24th August Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2.30pm; Thurs 22nd August at 2.30pm
Box Office: www.shifterstheplay.co.uk