The Producers

Fresh and funnier than ever, prepare for a full blast of satirical musical theatre in a very small space. If you don’t know The Producers already, you will discover a show that 57 years since Mel Brooks original film version, and 23 years since the Tony Award winning stage musical, still surprises and delights with equal measure.

The curtain rises on producer Max Biallystock, played by Max Nyman facing another total flop on Broadway. If his cat-calling at a blonde woman he spots out the window makes you wonder if it’s going to read for a contemporary audience, he soon proves himself an irresistible crook always on the edge of a nervous break-down, making sex starved pensioners happy in exchange for large cheques.

When oppressed accountant Leopold Bloom (played by Marc Antolin with more than a hint of Gene Wilder) comes to look at his books, they realise they could make more money with a flop than a hit. All they have to do is find the worst show, the worst director and a terrible leading man. Cue a visit to the home of Nazi fanatic, Franz Liebkind (Harry Morrison) who has written ‘Springtime for Hitler’- a play most likely to offend everyone in the audience. It’s a ridiculous and ingenious premise with relentless comic opportunities.

The cast are exceptional and the tight ensemble are a huge part of their success, merrily transforming from Nazi pigeons to fur-coated grannies and back to tapping dancing chorus girls in an instant. One of the most glorious scenes is the visit to the home of terrible director Roger De Bris (Trevor Ashley) and his partner Carmen Ghia ( Raj Ghatak). They are greeted with cocktails in a hallway decked with a naked living statue and an incestuous house-full of his semi-naked production team.

Director Patrick Marber runs riot with the play within the play, amping up the camp with wild precision so that by Act 2 when Hitler rides in on a golden chariot, think giant green cloak from Wicked but gold, the audience are fairly hysterical and unable to process any political satire at all. Or maybe it was the giant inflated silver sausage costume peppered with diamante that finished the audience off.

Everyone is ridiculous, so it’s hard to complain about the only female parts being entirely sexualised, either Ulla the Sweedish bombshell or the chorus of sex hungry grannies. Joanna Woodward does in fact do a brilliant job of bringing Ulla with her preposterous accent to life and her love story with Leopold is genuinely touching. When they dance together across the small stage of the Chocolate Factory, we are, for a moment swept back in time, to the golden age of musicals.

But the greatest love story is between the two male leads, Bloom and Biallystock who find true friendship for the first time, bring the show to a climax with their duet ,‘Til Him.’ Ultimately it is the warmth of the characters and the love of Showbiz and all its people that makes The Producers as glorious as it ever was. The energy of Marber’s production and the fabulous band in the tight space of the Mernier Chocolate Factory is mind-blowing. Do not go if you have a headache. Book immediately if you want to brighten up your day.


Photo credit: Manuel Harlan