Ben Hardy and Jason Patel excel in Sally El Hosaini’s gritty romance as a straight single white dad and a closet Asian nightclub performer navigate their mutual attraction

The world seems a little brighter when garage mechanic Luke (Ben Hardy) first meets drag artist Aysha (Jason Patel). Before stumbling by chance into an underground “gaysian” cabaret club, Luke, a straight single dad, plods from day to identical day in a life that seems to be painted in shades of dispiriting grey. Even his sex life – a functional, no-frills grapple with a disinterested woman in a patch of wasteland – is monochrome. But once he finds himself in Aysha’s orbit, colours flood the frame.

It’s an evocative visual leap that brings a touch of magic to this London, Essex and Manchester-set story, the latest picture from Sally El Hosaini, co-directed with long-term collaborator James Krishna Floyd (star of My Brother the Devil, and the screenwriter of this film). Here are characters with real-world problems. Luke is struggling with his rambunctious son; Aysha is living a double life, concealing her sexuality from her loving but conservative Muslim family, but there’s a shimmering fairytale romanticism that softens the harder edges of the story.