The week in theatre: Hello, Dolly!; The Hot Wing King; Fangirls – review

In Dominic Cooke’s stupendous production of Hello, Dolly! at the London Palladium, Dolly returns from Yonkers to New York, her home city, and visits the Harmonia Gardens, her favourite restaurant. Dancing waiters in claret-coloured tails, each carrying a silver salver as if it were a trophy, go wild with excitement as soon as they hear that she is on her way. Like Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s musical itself, they are light on their feet, and this ecstatic scene reinforces the show’s invigorating fantasy that anybody can become a somebody through sheer force of personality, that a little old – or middle-aged – lady can turn out to be a dynamo, a fixer, a star turn. Far from age making a woman invisible, Hello Dolly! , based on Thornton Wilder’s 1938 farce, is about hi-vis mastery, and Imelda Staunton plays Dolly to perfection.

Staunton’s star quality – she shines in her emerald ballgown like a queen descending the restaurant’s appropriately golden stairs – depends on her miraculous ability to stay genuine and intent, no matter how far-fetched the goings on around her. Naturalness and charm make her a joy to watch. She gives us a Dolly who exults in being herself, yet whose eyes fill with tears whenever she consults her dear departed philanthropist husband (she is a marriage broker, arranging her own second marriage by stealth). Dolly’s quarry is the grumpy millionaire Horace Vandergelder – entertainingly performed by Andy Nyman. But Staunton makes sure that scheming never subdues sentiment, and gives a stunning – melancholy but determined – rendition of Before the Parade Passes By at the end of the first half, about catching happiness while she still can.

Rae Smith’s set is sumptuous with vistas of late 19th-century New York, flower-laden wagons and even a steam train. A travelator allows the cast, when appropriate, to glide across the stage (the divine choreography is by Bill Deamer ), but there are also thrilling moments when Dolly turns literally into a showstopper and everyone else is statue-still while she sings. Jenna Russell is a flirtatiously poised Irene Molloy, another merry widow – a milliner who hates hats but is not averse to being picked up by a gangly, impecunious younger man (gorgeously tuneful Harry Hepple).

The show’s comic triumph has to be the song It Takes a Woman. The men gather en masse and energetically sing the lazy anthem about leaving it to a woman to run the house, unblock drains and so on. But the unsung implication, in this production, is clear: Dolly has no intention of becoming one of the song’s dainty woman with plenty of elbow grease. She is no Cinderella. She is more likely to arrange her own transport to the ball after skipping the washing up.

Washing up is to the point in Katori Hall ’s 2021 Pulitzer prize-winning comedy The Hot Wing King . It is always satisfying to see a kitchen on stage. Think of Arnold Wesker’s The Kitchen , John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger or the fried eggs at the end of the National Theatre’s 2016 production of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea . But The Hot Wing King marks a new generation of kitchen-sink drama. The kitchen has had an upgrade: the sink is discreet, the sideboards marble, the stove hi-spec (designer Rajha Shakiry). Within this cosmetically updated space, a sauce is being prepared by a team of five gay black men for the chicken wing (AKA “hot wangs”) contest held annually in Memphis, Tennessee.

This is an entertaining yet sensitive exploration of the challenges of gay masculinity. It raises questions about how to be a good father, uncle, lover, son. It takes its own time, running almost to three hours but allowing for a playfulness that enhances the illusion that the action is taking place in real time. There is tenderness, sparring, good-naturedly lewd mischief, outbreaks of dance and – a high point – a harmonious rendition, in relay, of Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much.

Cordell, the lead cook (unemployed, unlike his other half) is genuine, charismatic but unsure of himself. He is magnificently played by Kadiff Kirwan, dressed in short blue-and-white chef’s apron (saucy in every sense). He has left his wife and two sons, having fallen helplessly in love with dapper Dwayne (a fine Simon-Anthony Rhoden, who sings like a dream).

No spoilers on what happens to the sauce, but the plot thickens with the arrival of Dwayne’s teenage nephew, Everett, whose mother has died tragically (Kaireece Denton plays him with a moving mixture of innocence and street wisdom). Dwayne feels responsible for his nephew but fails to consult with Cordell before offering him a room in their house. There is hilarious support from sous chef Isom (Olisa Odele) and seasoned wisdom from Big Charles (Jason Barnett). Meanwhile, Dwayne’s drug-dealing father, TJ (a terrific performance by Dwayne Walcott), gives us a straight version of struggling masculinity. This is a heartwarming, refreshing and original show, flamboyantly stirred by director Roy Alexander Weise, in which simmering emotions come fiercely to the boil. Stay in the kitchen – as long as you can stand the heat.

Given the ecstatic reception of Fangirls on press night, I am likely to be in a minority in failing to describe myself as a fan. The hit Aussie musical (2019) is now in a British incarnation by its original director, Paige Rattray. The aim of the writer (also lyricist and composer) Yve Blake is to explore how fandom helps girls find – and lose – themselves. Valid though the idea is, it’s a big ask to expect it to support an entire show filled with bland pop and a shriekathon from the girls themselves.

It does, though, have a cracking cast. Thomas Grant judges Harry perfectly (inspired, one assumes, by Harry Styles), with vapid look, floppy fringe and puppy-dog eyes. His image keeps cropping up on pillowslips – the nearest his fans get to sleeping with him. Jasmine Elcock makes a remarkable and heartfelt debut as Edna, the 14-year-old who attempts to turn her fantasies into reality (be careful what you wish for – importing your hero into your schoolgirl bedroom might not go according to plan). But in trying to understand teenage girls, the show tilts towards patronising them. I couldn’t help noting that it is the unreconstructed middle-aged mum (Debbie Kurup) who saves the day – as if Blake had been on her side all along.

Star ratings (out of five)
Hello, Dolly! ★★★★★
The Hot Wing King ★★★★
Fangirls ★★

• Hello, Dolly! is at the London Palladium until 14 September

• The Hot Wing King is at the Dorfman, National Theatre, London until 14 September

• Fangirls is at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 24 August