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

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

★★½

“The book and score are entirely forgettable; the rhymes from a Hallmark card and devoid of wit or charm”

In 1996, eight years after the now legendary film, starring Tom Hanks, hit American screens, Big – The Musical premiered on Broadway. Nearly 25 years later, Morgan Young, director, choreographer and chief architect of this Dominion production, has finally realised his dream to bring it to the London stage. It has not aged well. Despite the inordinate amount of money clearly spent on this production, and a few very good performances, the whole show seems distinctly creaky, and slightly tawdry too, like a ride at a cheap fairground on which you slightly fear for your safety.

The story is that of 12 year old Josh Baskin (Jay McGuiness), who, sick of being small, makes a wish at a travelling carnival to be big, and wakes up in the morning with the body of a full-grown man. Fleeing from his terrified mother (Wendi Peters), who fails to recognise him, and with the aid of his best friend Billy (Jobe Hart in last night’s performance), he winds up in New York, where he rises to success at an ailing toy company owned by George MacMillan (Matthew Kelly), getting romantically entangled with Susan (Kimberley Walsh) along the way, before returning to his real age and his home. It’s a fairly slight tale, and the message, such as it is, is sentimental stuff – hang on to your childhood, don’t grow up too fast, and bring the honesty and playfulness of childhood into your adult life. Grown-ups get a pretty bad press in this fable all in all; the apogee of this being the dreadful yuppie dinner party in act two, in which, inexplicably, the supporting men appear to be dressed as versions of Alan Partridge. Sophisticated it isn’t; that quality being distinctly off-message it would appear.

The overall look of the show is disappointing, and the decision to use huge video screens as the centre piece of each scene is a mistake. It distracts from and deadens the action, and also, importantly, takes away from any attempt at intimacy. We are always at a big stadium gig, even in the show’s more tender moments, which serves them badly. The lighting doesn’t help either. All of which underlines the question continually in mind – ‘Why is this a musical?’. It feels like a musical by numbers because that’s exactly what it is. A traditional musical structure has been superimposed on a film narrative. And it doesn’t work. The book and score are entirely forgettable; the rhymes from a Hallmark card and devoid of wit or charm. The only moments to draw widespread audience laughter are in the spoken dialogue. Not a good sign.

The principals are well-cast and work hard. Jay McGuiness perfectly embodies the child-in-man Josh; Kimberley Walsh softens beautifully from power-dressed executive to the girl looking for love she so clearly is, and Matthew Kelly gives a tremendous turn as Macmillan. Wendi Peters is a consummate professional and lends performance oomph to a pretty scant role, but, as with the kids in the cast, she is of the strident MT singing style, which arguably runs counter to emotional depth. Jobe Hart did, however, stand out as Billy last night and most certainly has a musical theatre future. It’s a shame that all this professionalism serves such an underwhelming show.

Finally, it is more than disappointing to see an all-white adult chorus in a West End musical in 2019 (representing the working population of NEW YORK!), as it is to see the only transvestite/transexual character equated with the rotten underbelly of the city. Theatre at this level has no excuse not to do better.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Alastair Muir

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

Dominion Theatre

Reviewed – 18th September 2019

★★½

“The book and score are entirely forgettable; the rhymes from a Hallmark card and devoid of wit or charm”

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Alastair Muir

Big the Musical

Dominion Theatre until 2nd November

Recent shows covered by this reviewer: