Things are moving. Kwame Kwei-Armah's National Theatre hit has at last made it into the West End to be followed later this summer by Stratford East's The Big Life. But, while it's cheering to find black theatre taking centre stage, Kwei-Armah's lively, dialogue-rich play eventually lapses into melodrama: it's good, gutsy stuff but less thoughtful than his follow-up play, Fix Up.
The author himself plays, with quiet charisma, an ex-boxer called Deli who runs a dingy West Indian takeaway in Hackney and faces a multitude of problems. His 19-year-old son, Ashley, spurns education and falls into the clutches of a protection-racket boss. Deli's parasitic dad, who abandoned him as a kid, turns up and wrecks his son's relationship with a feisty waitress. And, as if this were not enough, Deli's brother is released from the slammer but never makes it as far as the Hackney caff.
In attempting to cram in the generation war, local gun-culture and the battle between books and booming consumerism, Kwei-Armah over-stretches his crowded plot; and he resolves it with a not wholly convincing father-son showdown. But what he does have is a fantastic ear for dialogue and an eye for the spectacle of old men behaving badly. There's something authentically creepy about the sight of Deli's dad coming on to his son's would-be girlfriend. And the dad's chum, Baygee, is a richly funny character who, hearing of a planned fast-food joint, announces: "If you ask me, West Indian and fast is a contradiction in terms."
Angus Jackson's production can't solve all the plot problems but adorns the action with vibrant live music and gets excellent performances all round. Don Warrington and Oscar James are superb as the old men forever harking back to some paradisal era of licensed promiscuity. Dona Croll is both sharp-tongued and sympathetic as the bookish, sparky waitress. And Michael Obiora as Deli's brashly materialistic son finds a chilling surrogate father in Shaun Parkes' racketeering mentor.
In many ways, it's a highly traditional play echoing Odets' social-issue dramas of the American 30s. But the occasion matters more than the play.
To find a culturally diverse West End audience cheering on a play that at least vividly addresses the maelstrom of modern Hackney life is to give one hope for the theatrical future.
· Until August 20. Box office: 0870 890 1104.
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