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The Menier Chocolate Factory’s revival of Mel Brooks’s beloved comedy musical The Producers felt like the ultimate luxury programming when it opened just before Christmas. The original production of the show was the defining theatrical hit of the ’00s, when it packed ’em in at the gargantuan Theatre Royal Drury Lane – so when the Menier bagged the first London revival it effortlessly sold out out the bougie Southwark theatre.
On the plus side, though, the Menier has a long and noble tradition of West End transfers, and it seemed more or less inevitable that the new Patrick Marber-directed production would be bound for a bigger stage.
And so it proves: The Producers is coming back to the West End.
In case you slept through the ’00s or are too young to remember them, Brooks’s musical is an all-singing staging of his sublimely bad taste 1967 film about disreputable Broadway producer Max, who enlists his hapless accountant Leo to help him stage an appallingly bad taste, sure-to-flop musical called Springtime for Hitler in order to con money out of his investors. Unfortunately the appalling slab of Nazi apologia becomes a walloping great hit, causing the duo all manner of problems.
Marber’s tough, grimy revival won plaudits in December – including a four star review from Time Out – for retaining all the laughs of the original production and having unfortunate relevance in our more fascist-friendly present day, while discretely tuning down some of Brooks’s more, uh, dated humour.
It’ll transfer to the Garrick Theatre – where Brooks’s Young Frankenstein played a few years back – retaining most of its original cast, notably Andy Nyman and Marc Antolin as Max and Leo.
The Producers runs at the Garrick Theatre, Aug 30-Feb 21 2026.
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