LIKE other recent examples of politically charged theatre at the Bush — Arinz Kene’s Misty and  Outbox Theatre’s And The Rest of Me Floats spring to mind —   I Wanna Be Yours is in a challenging vein.

Zia Ahmed’s debut work takes the apparent simplicity of a love story and spins it into something both epic and whimsical as it explores how deeply ingrained racism is, how bad we are at interrogating the detail of it and just how much of it there is around — even, or perhaps especially, in creative communities where one might expect better.

The play tells the story of actor Ella (Emily Stott), who meets poet Haseeb (Ragevan Vasan) at a workshop. Their attraction, vibrantly brought to life by both perfomers, is instant.

But as their relationship develops, the constant onslaught of racially aggravated aggressions that Haseeb undergoes as a Muslim man in Ella’s world are too much. She can’t always see them or speak to them so, as the years pass and the relationship grows, so too literally does Andre, the elephant ornament in the room which Ella picked up in India.

Director Anna Himali Howard and movement director Jennifer Jackson bind up these challenging political observations within the complex physicality of a production in which both actors are on stage throughout.

Centrally involved in the action is sign-language interpreter and actor Rachael Merry and, as Ella and Haseeb voice their inner thoughts, Merry signs their utterances while engaging with and reacting to them.

It's a device which means that  the play never becomes too insular and the song and movement sequences add a beautiful complexity and depth to the difficult issues Ahmed raises in a script which is profoundly and strikingly poetic, especially in expressing the pain of racism.

When Ella’s mum asks Haseeb what he’s doing about the “problems” in his community, his internal monologue is in equal parts stunning and disturbing and Vasan conveys them with a crystal-clear mixture of confusion and hurt — an outstanding moment in an outstanding play.

Runs until January 18, box office: bushtheatre.co.uk