If it tickles your particular funny bone, then you’ll find lots to like in this revival of The Producers at the Menier Chocolate Factory
“How could this happen?”
Senses of humour are funny things aren’t they. Despite a much lauded career (including an EGOT), Mel Brooks has never appealed to mine – from The Producers to Young Frankenstein, his retro comic stylings have generally left me cold. But as the Menier Chocolate Factory have revived the former and pretty much sold out the run in advance, it is clear I’m in the minority here.
Why bother going to The Producers again? Well I’m always open to having my mind changed as it is nearly 10 years since the one and only time I’ve seen it but as director Patrick Marber dials up the madcap energy in the already intense intimacy of the Menier, it is clear that no attempt is being made to refine the show for this day and age, all its broadneess and bawdiness is being celebrated.
It is still audacious in terms of its material. Broadway hacks Max Bialystock and Leopold Bloom alight on a plan to get rich by staging a stinker – Springtime for Hitler – but against all odds it succeeds. Which means there’s Nazi jokes, gay jokes, old-women-liking-sex jokes, stereotypes flying left, right and centre with a massively over-the-top approach to pretty much everything.
Andy Nyman and Marc Antolin hold the centre as well they can but there’s just so much going on around them that I still found it hard to enjoy – the excesses of Harry Marrison’s neo-Nazi show author and Trevor Ashley’s camp-to-the-extreme director are like performances from another decade. Creatively though, choreography from Lorin Latarro and Scott Pask’s hugely versatile set are impressive.
