THE PRODUCERS

Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★★

“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 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

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THE CABINET MINISTER at the Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★

“a lavish excursion into genteel decadence, handsomely mounted and delivered with flair.”

The Twombleys’ London townhouse could pass as a railway tearoom such is the scale of arrivals and departures in Nancy Carroll’s perky interpretation of Arthur Wing Pinero’s family farce.

Designer Janet Bird’s sumptuous Victorian set works wonders on the Menier’s compact stage. She creates more marvels – and thankfully more space – in Act Two’s re-creation of Drumdurris Castle, a transformation that won interval applause.

Costumes, too, are charming and elegant, unlike the inner workings of the strife-torn Twombleys who are facing a blizzard of debts and bills. Head of the household Sir Julian, the Cabinet Minister of the title, is also on the verge of resignation and disgrace following accusations of “accepting favours” in the bear pit of Westminster. No change there then.

Although the play’s promise is of political satire, it is matters of heart and purse that occupy a giddy procession of plots and subplots. The motive is money and marriage, the latter invariably facilitating the former.

Consequently, Nicholas Rowe, as Sir Julian, appears somewhat lost amid the sugar-rush garrulousness of the very modern ladies working hard to make ends – and couples – meet.

More dynamic and focused is his wife, former farmgirl Kitty Twombley, who is forever in a whirl, heading off financial calamity and protecting her brood with nefarious schemes. The talented Nancy Carroll, who also adapted the play, ensures her dazzling Kitty-with-claws is the multi-faceted fulcrum of this dizzying merry-go-round.

“It is fun and it is funny”

In an ensemble cast without notable flaws, special mention must go to Dillie Kean’s decrepit Lady Macphail. Her phlegmy Scottish brogue amusingly evokes the misty mountains, majestic pines and haunting pipes of her homeland. These sentimental interludes are in comedic contrast to the gnomic utterances of her awkward son Sir Colin (Matthew Woodyatt) who, commendably and in contrast to the general fevered tone, “refuses to fill the silence with bluster”.

Because much of the play’s frantic delight is to be found in baroque circumlocutions, leavened with sly quips, vegetable gags and double entendres constructed to land comfortably on the modern ear without entirely losing the spirit of the 1890 original. It is fun and it is funny.

Elsewhere Sara Crowe’s stately matchmaker Dora indulges in “practical interference” while Phoebe Fildes and Laurence Ubong Williams bring a touch of skulduggery and sharp practice as the blackmailing Lacklustre siblings, chancers on the make.

Director Paul Foster keeps the action tight, the lines crisp and the pacing modern, although he is forever combatting the grating anachronisms of class and entitlement (presumably the reason behind the addition of an unnecessary coda).

The 12-strong cast seem to delight in each other’s excellent work and there’s an anarchic energy which, although occasionally threatening to overwhelm the piece, ultimately finds a resolution to match its promise.

The Cabinet Minister is a lavish excursion into genteel decadence, handsomely mounted and delivered with flair.

THE PRODUCERS

Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★★

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

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 PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS

THE CABINET MINISTER at the Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★

“a lavish excursion into genteel decadence, handsomely mounted and delivered with flair.”

“It is fun and it is funny”

THE CABINET MINISTER at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed on 28th September 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE CABINET MINISTER

THE CABINET MINISTER