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

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

★★★★

“Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival”

By interval, while slowly making my way through the bottleneck towards the bar, I’m feeling a bit like the child from ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ folk tale. Only the joke is on me, apparently, rather than the other way round. It takes the second act to make me realise this, and my puzzled expression turns to one of realisation, all the while a smile reluctantly spreading across my face. The belated appreciation is inadvertently symptomatic of a musical that is, after all, fundamentally about second chances.

You have to ignore the flimsy plot to get to its heart. On the surface the story follows the celebrated matchmaker, Dolly Levi, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly half-millionaire Horace Vandergelder. It soon becomes clear, though, that Dolly intends to marry Horace herself. We think it’s all about the money, but as the twists unravel, we discover the true threads of the tale. Love is in the air, ultimately, conquering feelings of grief and bereavement as it sweeps through the auditorium in waves of feelgood farce. In the title role, Imelda Staunton gives a fantastically understated performance as she slowly lets go of her late husband’s ghost to find her way back to where she belongs.

Based on Thornton Wilder’s 1930s ‘The Matchmaker’, it premiered in 1963; so there is always the danger that today’s audiences will find it outdated and out of style. Yet it conveys a bygone age that we are willing to be transported back to. Escapism is the key. Rae Smith’s sumptuous sets mix turn of the century realism with animated backdrops; rickety trolleybuses and sandstone buildings with blue skies – into which, at one point, a full-size steam train billows out clouds of steam. Smith’s costumes match the opulence of the production, particularly during the signature scene in which Dolly descends the famous staircase of the Harmonia Gardens restaurant. The title number of ‘Hello Dolly’ builds slowly towards its ovation-grabbing finale. Dancing waiters and chefs epitomise Bill Deamer’s extravagant and flawless choreography. Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival, except for a few lines of Michael Stewart’s book. Yet the execution is faultless, and Jerry Herman’s music and lyrics are given full flight, buoyed up by the twenty strong orchestra down in the pit.

Staunton, to her credit, never steals the show in what is pretty much an ensemble piece (that also boasts one of the largest ensembles in London – it has more swings than a holiday camp playground). Andy Nyman’s Horace Vandergelder is a gently mocking Scrooge, extending his derision to himself as much as anyone else. His rebellious employees, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker (respectively Harry Hepple and the underused Tyrone Huntley) make a fine comedy double act that borders on cliché but thankfully just stops short. The other star turn comes courtesy of Jenna Russell’s Irene Molloy, the milliner who craves to swap her hat shop for a love nest yet is more than twice shy having been bitten by grief too many times.

The songs are not so much old fashioned as old school. Refreshingly nostalgic and timeless. Russell delivers one of the highlights; ‘Ribbons Down My Back’ with an aching hunger while some of the other rousing numbers fill us with joy. Staunton, of course, makes ‘Hello Dolly’ (the song and the show) her own, betraying a unique sense of self-doubt within her layered character. She likes to be in control of everybody’s lives, including her own, but her femininity is never victim to her feminism. There is strength and vulnerability. But also a glorious sense of fun. “It’s no use arguing – I have made up your mind” Dolly says to the redemptive Vandergelder.

There is no arguing with the success of this show either, or the ovation it received. Admittedly the first act drifts a bit, but by curtain call it is well and truly ‘back where it belongs’.

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

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

★★★★

“Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival”

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

Reviewed on 18th July 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

More reviews from Jonathan:

HELLO, DOLLY!

HELLO, DOLLY!

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