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THE PRODUCERS

★★★★★

Menier Chocolate Factory

THE PRODUCERS

Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★★

THE PRODUCERS

“Its biting, irreverent satire is the most delicious slap in the face you’ll ever experience”

“It is shocking, outrageous and insulting… and I loved every minute”. That is a quote from Mel Brooks’ and Thomas Meehan’s musical, but it could easily be the tagline of my review of Patrick Marber’s revival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. There are a lot of minutes – about one hundred and fifty of them – but each and every one of them is an inglorious joy.

It is extraordinary how it has stood the test of time. Written in 2001, based on Brooks’ 1976 movie, the bounds of good taste are annihilated. It’s a fun mind game to speculate as to whether it would ever get made today. Imagine the pitch. Camp Nazis goose-stepping while randy old widows tap dance with their Zimmer frames. Characters use sex as a way of extorting money. Jokes that rely on caricature, stereotypes and offending Jews and Gays. Pigeons with Swastikas and an abundance of limp-wristed ‘Heil Hitlers’. A curvy secretary who needs her fix of daily sex each morning. And of course, the show-stopping play-within-a-play ‘Springtime for Hitler’ featuring the Führer in gold spandex. Absolutely not! You’d be out on the street at best. In jail at worst.

Yet “The Producers” has not only survived, but it also feels more pertinent and relevant today than ever. Its biting, irreverent satire is the most delicious slap in the face you’ll ever experience. Wrap it up in Paul Farnsworth’s stunning array of costume, Lorin Latarro’s gorgeous choreography and Mel Brooks’ own score and you have the perfect Christmas present. It is thoroughly modern, yet the sense of vaudevillian nostalgia sweeps you off your feet from the opening bars to the final rousing chorus.

THE PRODUCERS

The premise is simple genius. Producer Max Bialystock bankrolls his Broadway flops by seducing rich, little old ladies. One day Leopold ‘Leo’ Bloom, a nervy accountant comes to check on his books but inadvertently hits on the idea that Max could make more money from a colossal failure than a huge hit. Cue the hunt for the worst play ever written, the most lamentable director and incompetent cast. The show will close on opening night and Max and Leo keep the money raised. But… well, you know the rest. You should. I’ve still yet to meet anyone who isn’t familiar with the story.

The show needs a dynamic duo at its heart. And this production beats with the irresistible pairing of Andy Nyman and Marc Antolin as Max and Leo. Nyman is star material from head to toe, full of ironic cynicism and scheming lechery with a taunting twinkle in his eye. Antolin is simply superb as the anxious accountant with dreams of Broadway. They are the oddest couple, yet visually, physically and vocally they are the perfect match. Harry Morrison, as the over-eccentric, Nazi-centric, pickelhaube-wearing writer of ‘Springtime for Hitler’ adds a zillion shades to the word ‘hilarious’, while Trevor Ashley takes ‘camp’ to the highest summits with his glorious portrayal of Roger de Bris, the flamboyant, failing theatre director. Joanna Woodward’s whimsical Swedish secretary adds love interest, sassy sexiness and a touch of tenderness. But we keep coming back to Antolin and Nyman, who steal the show so often they are in as much danger of winding up in jail as their characters.

The musical highlights are many. Antolin’s ‘I Wanna Be A Producer’, Woodward’s belting ‘When You’ve Got It, Flaunt It’ and Morrison’s high-spirited ‘Have You Ever Heard The German Band?’ to name a few. And Nyman’s ‘Betrayed’ during which he brilliantly gives us a speed summary of the show. Not to mention, of course, the ‘Gay Romp with Adolph and Eva’ in which the company, led by Ashley soar way, way over the top with the flamboyantly brazen ‘Springtime For Hitler’.

You really do have to see it to believe it. In fact, shorten that sentence. You really do have to see it! It is selling fast and furiously, but don’t worry too much. This show has ‘West End Transfer’ written all over it. I return to my opening line: “It is shocking, outrageous and insulting… and I loved every minute”. You will too.

 

THE PRODUCERS at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed on 10th December 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

 

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE CABINET MINISTER | ★★★★ | September 2024
CLOSE UP – THE TWIGGY MUSICAL | ★★★ | September 2023
THE THIRD MAN | ★★★ | June 2023
THE SEX PARTY | ★★★★ | November 2022
LEGACY | ★★★★★ | March 2022
HABEAS CORPUS | ★★★ | December 2021
BRIAN AND ROGER | ★★★★★ | November 2021

THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

 

We’re now on BLUESKY – click to visit and follow

 

Brass – 4 Stars

Brass

Brass

Union Theatre

Reviewed – 6th November 2018

★★★★

“this moving piece about love and solidarity, humanises history and brings the forgotten to the foreground”

 

As Remembrance Sunday is coming up this weekend, with particular poignancy, as it will mark a hundred years since the armistice, Brass seems the most appropriate piece of theatre to watch this week in the capital. Originally commissioned by National Youth Music Theatre in 2014, Benjamin Till’s World War One musical now makes its professional premiere at the Union Theatre. Dramatising real life stories and people from the time, this moving piece about love and solidarity, humanises history and brings the forgotten to the foreground.

The war has been raging on France’s frontlines for a year. Alf, conductor of one of Leeds amateur brass bands, has decided it’s time for him to enlist. With not much encouragement, the rest of the band also agree to sign up, no man wanting to be left behind. After some very basic training, they are packed off across the English Channel, with spirits high, ready to fight the Krauts and become heroes. It doesn’t take long before the true horrors of war reveal themselves. The cheery days in the band seeming like a distant memory.

Back on home soil, the wives, girlfriends, and sisters of the men are left in Leeds to pick up the pieces, everyday, fearful of receiving the dreaded telegram reporting their loved one’s death. But these women aren’t sitting in wait; they bravely do their bit for the war effort, working at the Barnbow munitions factory. Through the correspondence sent between the men and women, the audience are transported back and forth between home and the ravaged front, proving the power of words in sharing love, encouragement, and reassurance.

The most refreshing part of this production is having a story that evenly tells of both men and women’s trials and tribulations during The Great War. As incomprehensibly horrific as being in the trenches must have been, seeing your friends killed right before your eyes, it is just as hard-hitting hearing about those treacherous times through the female perspective. With sensitive sophistication, Brass is a multi-faceted exploration of the devastation war brings to every member of the family.

Benjamin Till’s music ranges from haunting lamentations to raucous morale-boosting ditties, which help to bring light and shade into the show. Most songs are rather unmemorable, yet still excel at moving the story onward, offering the emotional clout needed. The power of the cast’s voices is exemplary, creating gorgeous harmonies that can be spine tingling. With just the Musical Director, Henry Brennan, on the piano, this basic set up gives space for the singing to take centre stage.

Highly moving and heartfelt, Brass compels you to reflect, and make sure that the lives lost to the war are not forgotten.

 

Reviewed by Phoebe Cole

Photography by Mark Senior

 


Brass

Union Theatre until 24th November

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Heartbreak House | ★★★★ | January 2018
Carmen 1808 | ★★★★★ | February 2018
The Cherry Orchard | ★★★★ | March 2018
Twang!! | ★★★★ | April 2018
H.R.Haitch | ★★★★ | May 2018
It’s Only Life | ★★★★ | June 2018
Around the World in Eighty Days | ★★★ | August 2018
Midnight | ★★★★★ | September 2018

 

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