IS IT possible to keep prejudice at bay by “not seeing” someone’s race while being sufficiently aware of it to ensure we're not denying their identity? Should we even be trying to do either of these things?

Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's unsettling new play tackles these dilemmas by looking at the fortunes of the black Gary and the white Nicky, a working-class couple with three kids whose happy existence is undermined by events at Gary’s workplace.

When Gary finally reacts to what he perceives as years of low-level, more-or-less covert racism by work colleagues, his decisive response gives him a new sense of pride and purpose. Yet it simultaneously throws everything else, including his relationship with Nicky, into deep confusion.

The great strength of the play and its production is the palpable depth of feeling between two people who, unlike those around them, have found and nurtured true love. It’s a circumstance that makes the unfolding events all the more distressing.  

But A Kind of People's forte is also in its subtlety and complexity. Although most of the characters might at times invite condemnation, rarely is it possible to do so. Even Gary’s horribly patronising boss Victoria (Amy Morgan), who comes closest to being the villain of the piece, manages to elicit sympathy once we see her lonely and confused plight as she struggles to comprehend what, if anything, she has done wrong.

Gary, who should really elicit our compassion, fails to fully win our hearts because it's never entirely clear that racism is at the root of his troubles or, if it is, that his reaction has been proportionate and  sensible.

Other themes, including the desirable extent of ambition and the fragile limits of solidarity, make a Kind of People an absorbing and often witty creation that generates a host of emotions and questions.

But not all is perfect, by any means. One wonders whether two of the peripheral characters, the couple of Mo (Asif Khan) and Anjum (Manjinder Virk), are needed at all and a scene in which Anjum explains why she wears a head scarf seems clumsily bolted on and unnecessary, as do one or two other exchanges.

There's also a needlessly dramatic finale that introduces a new facet to Nicky's behaviour, when a more satisfactory conclusion might have been arrived at 10 minutes earlier.

Yet, in presenting an intelligently nuanced exploration of race and class at a time when exchanges about the subject rarely show any depth of consideration or understanding, Kaur Bhatti has come up with another play of note.

Runs until 18 January 18, box office: royalcourttheatre.com