Mel Brooks, a past-master at bad taste and political incorrectness, is famous for two American cult films, Blazing Saddles, a wonderful spoof on Westerns, and The Producers, a wonderful spoof on Broadway musicals.
The film was turned into a musical in 2003 and directed and choreographed by Susan Stroham. There have been two films: first with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in 1967 and then with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in 2005.
The Producers is a musical for those who love show biz and the broad music hall tradition on which it is based. It’s not the sort of musical you come out singing the songs. It’s the sort of musical you come out repeating the verbal and visual gags.
A New York producer, learning there is far more money to be had in staging a flop than a hit, decides to mount the worst musical ever written.
Springtime with Hitler is a ghastly gay romp about Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun in Berchtesgaden and features a Seig-Heiling, goose-stepping chorus which gets into swastika formations in the kitschy manner of Busby Berkeley.
There is also a chorus of nymphomaniac old ladies with zimmer frames. The critics hail the show as a satiric masterpiece. It becomes an instant hit, and the producer ends up in prison.
Patrick Marber’s intimate revival does exactly what the song says and keeps it gay, keeps it gay, keeps it gay. A male nude statue figures prominently during one song.
Andy Nyman and Marc Antolin are engaging as Max and Leo, the devious producer and his naïve accountant. Trevor Ashley as a drag queen is very funny when he is ludicrously made-up to look like Hitler.
Harry Morrison is amusing as the lunatic Nazi author of the musical and he wears a German helmet and lederhosen. He breeds pigeons who are fully paid-up members of the Nazi Party.
Attitudes have changed over the five decades since it first premiered and the show does go on a bit too long; but the revival is still enormous fun and will be enjoyed most by those who enjoy old-fashioned musicals and good old-fashioned camp and send-ups of show business and recognising references to famous Broadway musicals and personalities.
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