A balletic, delicate play about the brutality of gentrification and social cleansing.

Omz (Lovehall), Bilal (Williams-Stirling) and Joey (Sesay) don’t feel like characters – they are teenage boys who dream of using their football skills to lift their families out of the estates they live in. What Tyrell Williams has created with this multi award-winning West End transfer is fully-fleshed people who carry the hopes of their audience (positioned as a football crowd) as they navigate youth, young manhood and the ever-increasing vice grip of gentrification.

Director Daniel Bailey’s stage is beautiful, with the boys moving in a way that brings to mind the classic tableau vivant style. The balletic nature of their movement is often juxtaposed with the brutality of their existence, whether the broken lifts that means a sick grandfather has to navigate the stairs or the shutting of Morleys necessitating a long walk for hot affordable food. In many ways, the beauty of sound, lighting and stage design illuminates the stark realities the boys have to navigate.

Supporting the script are three star making performances. Kedar Williams-Stirling, Emeka Sesay and Francis Lovehall reprise their roles and imbue the characters with such tenderness that when they fall out, it feels like true loss, the loss coming from the hope the audiences have for them to beat the odds. The best moment of the play comes where the three boys go to a club and perform a dance routine. For a frozen moment, they are unburdened by the pressure of thinking about where they might have to move to, seeking care for family members or what happens if they are unsuccessful. No, for a period of time, they are young boys living their lives with joy; weekend superstars living in the moment.

Underneath the light, laughter and love, Red Pitch is a scathing political commentary, a forensic examination of the people that are pushed aside in the pursuit of artisanal bakeries, micro breweries and yoga studios. And in that examination Williams’ script makes a powerful argument that the stories and people that are erased from the city’s narrative are the only thing that give it soul.