The concluding part of Dyer’s and Williams’ ground-breaking trilogy shines a fervent light on the reality of race and the obstacles and fallacies of cultural assimilation, in this forensic examination of identity.

Denise (Duncan-Brewster) and Carly (Doherty) are two people that, on the surface, could not be more different. Where Denise (Delroy’s mum) is Black British Jamaican and an aspiring chef after a career working in the NHS, Carly (Michael’s sister), is a white working-class woman, acutely aware of race whilst struggling to navigate and escape her upbringing in a household where racism was part of the social fabric. Their decision to combine businesses – flowers and Caribbean food – is unsuccessful, and as the play opens, the two women argue as to who is to blame, the shadow of decades of lost life savings casting a pall over the proceedings.

Duncan-Brewster and Doherty’s performances feel physical and weighty. They are just as scarred by their knotty pasts as Michael and Delroy in the preceding instalments but seem more animated by each other’s barbed criticism than by a country that isn’t working for them. They also both excel with off-the-cuff crowd work, creating moments of levity that prevent the drama feeling too heavy. Using the same staging from the first two instalments is a shrewd choice by director Clint Dyer. Having an elevated cross creates divisions that the characters have to navigate – an apt metaphor for the divisions in society. It also makes the final image – Denise and Carly walking arm-in-arm towards an uncertain but unified future – all the more powerful. Jackie Shemesh’s lighting continues to excel by using subtle colour changes to connote different characters warmly received.

Dyer and Williams’ script feels tonally different in this final part. Whilst the dialogue retains the anger and hurt of previous instalments (Denise’s fury at the coronation is as excoriating as it is hilarious), Closing Time is marked by a plaintive desire to be heard and accepted by the ones you have learned to love. In the end, the trilogy is a tour-de-force in presenting uncomfortable truths being earnestly explored.

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