Shifters star Tosin Cole: 'You have to trust your ability. Like they say in basketball – shooters gotta shoot.'

I’d been told before we meet, that actor Tosin Cole will probably only talk about his starring role in Netflix’s Supacell and the transfer of Shifters, Benedict Lombe’s gorgeous love story in which he co-stars with Heather Agyepong, from the tiny Bush theatre to the West End: nothing personal or political. But we meet as a wave of racist violence sweeps the country, and if feels foolish not to ask the 32-year-old British Nigerian actor about it.

“I want to answer this, but I want to answer it right,” he says eventually. “How can we put faith in people [in authority] who let these things happen? We need to see real consequences for wrongdoing that is actually quite disgusting. When ugly things like that happen it makes me think we have a long way to go as human beings.”