The Producers
Last seen in London almost 18 years ago, it’s easy to forget what a phenomenon The Producers was at the time - easily the most hyped musical of the century until the emergence of Hamilton.
Adapted from his own relatively obscure 1967 film, Brooks’s story of two unscrupulous Broadway producers who stage an appallingly bad-taste play about Hitler was the defining show of the noughties. Times have moved on, though: The Producers is less revered than it was in its day, and it’s certainly hard to imagine it returning to its gigantic former home of Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
But that’s beside the point. It’s a coup for the tiny Menier to have scored the first London revival of the show. The run is completely sold out, so it’s a hit, even if the goalposts have shifted a bit (a single show at Drury Lane has higher capacity than a whole week of performances at the Menier).
Patrick Marber has never directed a musical before, but his diverse career has prepped him well for this production, with his roots in comedy with The Day Today et al all the way up to his latterday engagement with his Judaism via Leopoldstadt and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.
His is a much tougher, grimier take on The Producers than the polished original production – the shabbiness of mid-twentieth century New York is virtually an extra character, and in a career-best tun, Andy Nyman’s unscrupulous protagonist Max Bialystock looks positively Dickensian in his stained waistcoat, grubby jacket...