Review Roundup: What Went Right for THE PRODUCERS at Menier Chocolate Factory?

The first major London revival of Mel Brooks’ musical adaptation of The Producers is now open at the Menier Chocolate Factory, directed by Tony Award-winning Patrick Marber and Broadway choreographer Lorin Latarro.

Starring Andy Nyman, Marc Antolin, Joanna Woodward and Harry Morrison, this laugh-out-loud production runs until 1 March 2025.

Based on the classic cult film of the same name, the original Broadway production won twelve Tony Awards, and skewers Broadway traditions, taking no prisoners as it proudly proclaims itself an "equal opportunity offender!"

What did the critics think?

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

Aliya Al-Hassan, BroadwayWorld: Despite writing the film back in 1968, Brooks' writing feels as bitingly sharp as ever. The fact that the show has sold out already is testament to the public appetite for this spiky love letter to theatre. A show that revels in bad taste, Marber makes sure that this production takes every overt insult and offensive satirical element and runs with it.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: Nyman eats up the stage, singing powerfully, eyes constantly flashing towards the next main chance, his comic timing – he clasps his heart every time someone mentions money – obvious but also impeccable. As the hapless Bloom, a man never far from a panic attack which sets him sliding across the floor like a human broom, Marc Antolin exudes delicate charm and an attractive fragility. His love affair with the Swedish Ulla (Joanna Woodward, very funny) is played straight; their dance to “That Face” is a tender moment in an uproarious night.

Clive Davis, The Times: As Leo Bloom, the neurotic accountant-turned-impresario, the rubber-limbed Marc Antolin spins around the floor like a broken Catherine wheel during a fit of hysterics. And there are satisfyingly OTT performances from Trevor Ashley as ultra-camp director Roger De Bris and Harry Morrison as demented Nazi composer and pigeon-fancier Franz Liebkind, who has his chorus line in the form of a row of swastika-wearing bird puppets.

Matt Hemley, The Stage: Key to this show’s success has always been the partnership at its heart. The original pairing of Nathan Lane and Lee Evans in the West End was joyous, and that, happily, is also the case here. Nyman and Antolin work delightfully together, Nyman a ball of frustrated energy, Antolin on top form as his nervy, blanket-hugging sidekick. They sing and dance wonderfully, and they’re very funny, too – both the physical and verbal comedy is a genuine treat.

Louis Chilton, The Independent: It’s hard to resist incessant comparisons to the original, so closely does The Producers hew to it; all of the funniest lines are ripped verbatim from the 1967 screenplay. (“Hitler… there was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon. Two coats!”) The variations are chiefly musical, the lively and bombastic songs dotted across the musical’s two acts, all written by Brooks himself – an artist who always has one foot in vaudevillian tradition.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: Still so original, and delightfully – daringly – funny, it is revived by director Patrick Marber with such vigour, sparkle and controlled wildness that it renders itself the London show of the festival season – funnier, camper and more outre than pantomime, although it pulls back from the full freight of the danger in its political satire.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: Patrick Marber’s fun, slick-ish production pulls out all the stops for that still jaw-dropping scene, albeit on a fringier budget. Plump and purringly feline, Trevor Ashley’s Roger De Bris, Springtime’s director-turned-Hitler-stand-in, arrives in a gilded chariot – the kitsch pièce de résistance of a sequence that boasts a chorus-line of silver-clad stormtroopers goose-stepping, tap-dancing and Sieg Heil-ing with limp-wristed abandon. It’s a consummate guilty pleasure: we’re laughing at the Nazis at the risk of traducing the darkest chapter of 20th century history.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: The Producers is a bit dated, a bit slow in getting going, and is bereft of the exciting hype that fizzed and crackled through it last time. But its pillorying of fascist iconography remains hysterically funny and steely sharp – perhaps sharper than it was before.

Nick Curtis, The Standard: The incidental detail is wonderful: the Zimmer-frame chorus line of Bialystok’s conquests is balanced by a Fiddler-style onslaught of capering shtetl inhabitants earlier on. Some throwaway lines are built up into full-scale Vaudevillian “bits”. Paul Farnsworth’s costumes, including hotpants and giant spangled Bratwurst and Bier-stein headgear for the dancers, Swastika-clad pigeons and a living statue with outsized genitalia, are hilarious.

Helen Hawkins, The Arts Desk: The little Menier has somehow shoehorned this spectacular into its limited playing space, tricked out here as a big Broadway venue with red velvet curtains, swirling follow-spots and posters outside. Max’s office is created inside it with just a door with his name on it, a giant safe that doubles as all manner of furniture and, of course, a casting couch. At the rear are handy jungle-gym bars the cast can hang from and even dance on.

Average Rating: 84.0%