The Hot Wing King, National Theatre review - high kitchen-stove comedy, with sides of drama

There’s an exuberant comedy from the start in Katori Hall’s The Hot Wing King, which comes to London after an initial Covid-truncated Off Broadway run which brought her a Pulitzer prize in 2021. Roy Alexander Weise’s production puts in all the energy it can find and then more, doing its best to balance that comedy with the more serious themes, such as family responsibility, and a man’s role in the world, with which it is interspersed.

It’s a balance that the production does not finally quite achieve, however, with an extended first half dominated by the kitchen banter of four Memphis friends, all black and gay, who have assembled for an annual ritual which sees them prepare for the city’s Hot Wing Contest. Cordell, who’s very much the recipe master in this kitchen drama (of the stove-top rather than sink variety), hopes to clinch the crown with his new “Spicy Cajun Alfredo with Bourbon Infused Crumbled Bacon” recipe. Character presentation is vivid, though in the opening verbal extravagances it takes a while to establish quite who is who within this familiar group whose rituals and habits have clearly been established over years of friendship.

Cordell (Kadiff Kirwan) lives with his partner Dwayne (Simon-Anthony Rhoden), a more controlled character who has a steady job as a hotel manager (the circumstances of how they met come out later). It’s Dwayne’s home, and Cordell made the move from St Louis to be with him, that distance, and difference clearly meaning more than just geographical relocation; “M Town” is felt as a special place in itself, though it’s culinary rather than more familiar musical traditions that seem to matter here. Joining them in the “New Wing Order”, as their culinary crew has come to be named, are Isom (Olisa Odele) and barber Big Charles (Jason Barnett), a couple with even bigger characters for whom friendly bickering seems to have become the relationship mode. There's no angst about either race or sexuality among them: these are men happy in who they are.

So far, so groovy. A little too groovy, actually, as they play out routines that recall sitcom, an easy – and potentially unending – camaraderie that keeps dramatic development slow. The only element of conflict apparent is between Cordell’s determination to concentrate on the competition marinades, set against Dwayne seeming inability to forget about his work, as well as Big Charles’s absorption in a Grizzlies game, and Isom’s playing around. And it’s Isom’s camp that dominates in some lovely music and dance moments, with a rendition of Luthor Vandross’s “Never Too Much” a particular treat. The drawback is a certain kind of in-joke comic concentration that will certainly win over audiences who are in the right mood, while leaving others rather more detached.But the meat of the emotional drama is inevitably cooking, first with a brief visit from Dwayne’s drug-dealing brother TJ (Dwane Walcott), then the arrival of nephew Everett “EJ” (Kaireece Denton) whose family circumstances (not least TJ's lack of attention) means he’s looking for a place to stay. Previously suppressed frictions come into the open, largely played out in the backyard, complete with some basketball action, that stands in front of the main kitchen space (with a bedroom above it) that’s the centre of Rajha Shakiry’s set. (Pictured above, Kaireece Denton, Kadiff Kirwan)

Hall certainly knows how to draw that drama down, culminating in a very powerful pre-interval scene between Cordell and Dwayne that reveals much, best left unrevealed here, about the stresses in their emotional dynamic. It feels a long time coming though, and follows a crucial, plot-changing mistake with a jar of super-hot spices that is sure to draw an audience gasp. (Not a sentence you expect to write, but then how often do you come across a piece where varieties of Pelepele spice mixes almost feel like characters in their own right?).

The Hot Wing King’s second-half action simmers more gently, with occasional boils-overs, towards unexpected results, on the competition front at least, that see comedy pitch a move towards too-easy reconciliation. Hall is always assured in her evocations of her native Memphis, rather less so in regulating the evolving emotional dynamic. It’s certainly a distance away from the luminous world the playwright created in Our Lady of Kibelo, her previous London appearance, at Theatre Royal Stratford East, five years ago. That play felt somehow finer in grain, more organic (and temperamentally closer to this reviewer). But The Hot Wing King should find receptive audiences, even if, at close to three hours, it’s a long evening; a degree of pruning in the first half-hour or so would surely benefit. But there's richness of writing here, and the sheer enjoyment evident from the ensemble cast carries it resoundingly.

• The Hot WIng King at the Dorfman, National Theatre to September 14
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