Springtime for Tommy -- Guest Review by Doctor Terror
The Producers (Garrick Theatre)
It was pure coincidence that I saw this the day of Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom rally in September 2025. I had initially thought that all these people draped in union jacks, crosses of St George and occasionally more mysterious flags looking at first glance not unlike swastikas had come to London to support some sporting event, but no. Yet perhaps it was apt that I had picked this day to come and see this superlative piece of satirical comedy. Robinson is really called Yaxley, a Luton Jew with a Catholic mother. Mel Brooks, creator of the Producers, is really called Kaminsky, a New York Jew with a Catholic wife. Both like a bit of theatre..
The Garrick Theatre was where Brooks' Young Frankenstein had debuted in the UK, a slick, pared-down adaptation of the bloated Broadway original which was a much bigger hit with the critics than its New York incarnation had been, and beloved by the public. This too was a lower-budget interpretation compared to the show's smashing West End debut with Nathan Lane and Lee Evans, but just as wonderful and - crucially - just as funny.
Patrick Marber (of The Day Today fame, to name but one of his credits) had adapted the show for the Menier Chocolate Factory stage before bringing it here. He has a gift for communication. I once spoke to him after a performance of his play The Red Lion at the Trafalgar Studios and asked him whether, as the co-creator of Alan Partridge, he and his colleagues Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan had decided to base him on a real person. 'Oh, absolutely,' he said. 'You mix Jim Rosenthal with Elton Welsby and that's who you get.'
The role of Max Bialystock is here played by Andy Nyman who created many of Derren Brown stage shows with him and uses his tricks as an illusionist to pop up as one of the chorus girls while his colleague Marc Antolin sings 'I Want to be a Producer'. The whole cast is, of course, brilliant. My friend started laughing uncontrollably the second Harry Morrison's Franz Liebkind stepped onto the stage and didn't stop until the final bows.
And so, still giggling, we stepped out into the streets and wandered towards Trafalgar Square, knowing that Mel is right: you can laugh at anything. Many from Tommy's rally were still about. They were marching to a faster pace. But it didn't look much like the master race.