Aliyah Odoffin (Latisha) and Letitia Wright (Yvonne) in The Story [Feruza Afewerki]

TRACEY Scott Wilson’s fast-paced newsroom thriller, The Story, first produced in New York in 2003, tackles racial politics and journalistic integrity, but offers no easy resolution.

Set in a nameless US city, Yvonne (Letitia Wright), an ambitious young black reporter, is desperate to work in news. She lands a job at the paper founded by the family of her white boyfriend, Jeff (Wilf Scolding).

When she arrives at Vanguard, the paper’s section covering the city’s black community, her hard­nosed editor Pat (Lorraine Toussaint) gives Yvonne safe assignments, allowing her little opportunity to shine.

But then Yvonne decides to investigate the murder of a white teacher in a poor black neighbourhood and chases the story alongside fellow black investigative reporter Neil (Ashley Thomas). Their rivalry is neatly encapsulated in a comic restaurant scene. Yvonne identifies and interviews Latisha (Aliyah Odoffin), a teenage girl in a local female gang known as the AOBs, who claims responsibility for the murder.

Clint Dyer’s fleet-footed production has Neil reporting back to Pat and Yvonne to Jeff in parallel overlapping scenes.

The first half flies by on Ann Fleischle’s imaginative set, which incorporates a community hall, piano, basketball court, school gym and newspaper office.

But in the second half Wilson pulls the rug from under us with numerous plot twists and competing themes that soon become hard to follow.

It’s a shame because The Story feels particularly topical in an age of unreliable information and fake news, but Wilson covers too much ground and the play’s main focus gets lost.

Still, there are impressive performances from the leads and hard-working ensemble.

Until October 24
nationaltheatre.org.uk