THE PRODUCERS

Garrick Theatre

★★★★★

“Naughty throughout, the production embraces its sparkly bad taste with debauched chutzpa”

Some shows come round at just the right moment. At a time when everyone is avoiding the political cracks in the pavement for fear of causing offence, along bounces Mel Brooks’ delightfully unrestrained The Producers gatecrashing the zeitgeist and reminding us that laughter can be the most subversive act of all.

Seems like a relief to be able to guffaw without checking the taste-o-meter.

Patrick Marber’s revival, first seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory, has now graduated to the Garrick, bringing with it the same riotous mix of bad taste, Broadway pizazz, spectacle and sheer joy.

The premise is still a comic marvel. Max Bialystock, a washed-up producer, has found a way to bankroll his flops by seducing elderly widows. Enter Leo Bloom, a neurotic accountant who spots a loophole: with creative accounting, more money could be made from a disaster than a hit.

Together they hatch a plan to stage the worst musical ever written. Unfortunately for them, that play – Springtime for Hitler – is embraced as satirical genius.

Andy Nyman’s Max is an inspired mix of sleaze and clowning, hustling with the air of a man who might sell his own mother if it kept the lights on. Nyman delivers – always.

Marc Antolin makes a marvellously twitchy Leo, a tangle of nerves and Broadway dreams. Together, they are a comic odd couple whose energy drives the show. Their routines – whether sparring, scheming, or tentatively finding a kind of friendship – are delivered with sparkling timing.

The supporting company maintain the standard – this is an ensemble of comic genius.

Joanna Woodward belts gloriously as Ulla, the secretary who offers romance as well as vocal fireworks. Harry Morrison’s Franz Liebkind is a delicious caricature of the deranged Nazi playwright, his lederhosen-clad lurching matched only by his chorus of puppet pigeons. Best of all, Trevor Ashley brings the house down as Roger de Bris, the flamboyant director pressed into service as the Führer, a vision in spangles and satin who manages to be both ridiculous and weirdly lovable.

Marber and choreographer Lorin Latarro work wonders in giving this the sweep of a Broadway blockbuster. Old ladies tap-dance on Zimmer frames, accountants break into showbiz numbers, and stormtroopers goose-step in perfectly drilled formation. Scott Pask’s lightbulb-framed set and Paul Farnsworth’s ever-more glittering and outré costumes heighten the delirium, while Brooks’ songs – “I Wanna Be a Producer”, “Betrayed” – still land with deadpan brilliance.

The show-within-a-show, Springtime for Hitler is the most bad taste, gloriously over-the-top sequence you will see anywhere in London. It deserves, and nearly receives, its own giddy standing ovation.

The satire has softened a little with time, but it is genuinely funny. Not funny as in light-entertainment-knowing-chuckles but the real thing, and slightly febrile. It is Mel Brooks after all.

What lifts this production above mere lark is its unencumbered freedom of spirit. Naughty throughout, the production embraces its sparkly bad taste with debauched chutzpah. It is like a big guilty secret we all share in a tucked-away speak-easy from where the social media stormtroopers are barred.

For all the lechery, fraud and outrageous parody, there is genuine affection in the bond between Max and Leo, and a sense that Brooks’ ultimate subject is not fascism but the lunacy of showbusiness itself. It is both love-letter and send-up, celebrating the power of theatre even as it mocks its excesses.

The Garrick now houses the most joyously tasteless evening in town. It is the ultimate antidote to All That Horrible Stuff Out There. It may be shocking, outrageous and insulting, but you will surrender. You vill surrendah.

THE PRODUCERS

Garrick Theatre

Reviewed on 15th September 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

MRS WARREN’S PROFESSION | ★★★★★ | May 2025

UNICORN | ★★★★ | February 2025

WHY AM I SO SINGLE? | ★★★★ | September 2024

BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF | ★★★ | June 2024

FOR BLACK BOYS … | ★★★★ | March 2024

HAMNET | ★★★ | October 2023

THE CROWN JEWELS | ★★★ | August 2023

ORLANDO | ★★★★ | December 2022

THE PRODUCERS

★★★★

“the air is thick with mischief and the sense of fun that this insanely talented troupe bring to the stage is enough to win us over”

‘Transsexual Transylvaniaaa-a-a!’ comes to mind the moment James Daly’s lace-and-leather-clad, midriff-baring Dracula makes his flamboyant entrance onto the stage. But it’s a riff that’s half a century old. So the writers, Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, need something more saucy to dollop onto the old frank-n-furter. It’s safe to say, thankfully, that they’ve dished up the magic ingredients – hundreds and thousands of them in fact, sacrilegiously scattered all over Bram Stoker’s gothic masterpiece. It’s the theatrical equivalent of popping candy, that fizzles in your mouth and leaves you giggling with effervescent joy. Chuck in some camp, gender-swapping, costume-changing, character-bending humour; a touch of gore, and rapid-fire one-liners and you eventually arrive at the imperfect feast that is “Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors”. Faithful(ish) to Bram Stoker’s original, it still takes succulent chunks of the story’s flesh and regurgitates it dripping with frivolity. As the writers themselves have said of the novel: ‘anything that takes itself that seriously is a prime target for satire’.

As the houselights fade, we are plunged into a cacophony of darkness and noise, rather like entering a ghost train at a fairground. Tijana Bjelajac’s shadowy set reflects this kind of clubland-meets-circus atmosphere, while Tristan Raine’s costumes blend Victoriana with novelty, giving hints of steampunk. Clever use of props and puppets add to the magic, while the many costume changes are acrobatic feats – one in particular drawing its own round of applause. But the main attraction is the juggling act in which the cast of five play a whole horde of madcap characters.

Little time is spent in Transylvania itself. Jonathan Harker (a wonderfully goofy and uptight Charlie Stemp) rocks up at Dracula’s castle to clinch a lucrative property deal with the count. James Daly’s Dracula is the archetypal image of the narcissistic Rock Star – money and sex on tap but still wanting more. The sexual tension between him and Harker is palpable, until Dracula diverts his bloodthirsty attentions onto Harker’s fiancé, Lucy. By now we are back in Whitby, not exactly the kind of seaside town you have in mind for a queer pilgrimage. Dracula meets his match with the array of kooky individuals he comes up against. Safeena Ladha is headstrong and assertive as Lucy. Her rather downtrodden sister, Mina, is played by Sebastien Torkia, complete with ginger wig and ruffled ballgowns. Dianne Pilkington is their father, Dr. Westfield, who has turned their house into a live-in retreat for society’s oddballs (all played with a vaudevillian hilarity by them all).

You know the story, and how it ends. It’s the treatment that stands out. Co-writer Greenberg also directs, his hand visibly cracking the whip to keep the pace as frenetic as the lunacy. After the initial set-up, however, the humour is relatively conventional. More panto than subversive. The melodrama is kicked to the rafters even if some of the jokes don’t aim quite so high. But the air is thick with mischief and the sense of fun that this insanely talented troupe bring to the stage is enough to win us over. It is all very silly and chaotic, but delivered with precision and comic timing you could die for. But it doesn’t quite draw blood. It is more like a love-bite than a sharp set of fangs puncturing our skin. Then again – that’s probably a good thing. Definitely worth staking out.

THE PRODUCERS

Garrick Theatre

★★★★★

“Naughty throughout, the production embraces its sparkly bad taste with debauched chutzpa”

THE PRODUCERS

Garrick Theatre

Reviewed on 15th September 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS

Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★

“the air is thick with mischief and the sense of fun that this insanely talented troupe bring to the stage is enough to win us over”

DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS

Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed on 18th March 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Matt Crockett

Previously reviewed at this venue:

DRACULA

DRACULA

DRACULA

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