The musical ‘The Producers'

Who could have predicted that a musical tribute to Adolf Hitler would ever become a comedy hit on Broadway?

Certainly not the two men behind a crafty scheme to stage a surefire flop. But then, who could have known that Mel Brooks would be able to improve on his 1967 film about these producers by reshaping it as a musical, and that it would prove such an eternal hit itself?

It delivers one belly laugh after another. And still, there is so much more to this production than good, old-fashioned tomfoolery. Sewn together with an unceasing ability to laugh at itself, it is a musical as radical and joyously subversive as when it first appeared on film in 1967.

Still so original, and delightfully – daringly – funny, it is revived by director Patrick Marber with vigour, sparkle and controlled wildness.

Marber’s production sticks faithfully to Brooks and Thomas Meehan’s book: two producers plot to find the worst play ever written so that they can keep the proceeds they have raised from investors when it flops.

Who can blame Max Bialystock (Andy Nyman) and Leo Bloom (Marc Antolin) for assuming that the musical Springtime for Hitler, written by Nazi sympathiser Franz Liebkind (Harry Morrison), will be anything other than a disaster? “It’s practically a love letter to Hitler,” says Bialystock, but disaster truly strikes when it flies on opening night.

At its centre is Andy Nyman’s extraordinary Max Bialystock, the wayward producer who has lost his knack for making Broadway hits. Cheekily played by Nyman, he is packed full of shameless tricks and bravado. His partner-in-crime comes in the form of Marc Antolin’s Leo Bloom, the accountant-turned-producer who looks uncomfortable in his own skin. Clutching his blue blanket at every opportunity and seeming always on the edge of a breakdown, he reluctantly follows Bialystock through his schemes to make money off the biggest flop in theatre history. Together, they form a double act you can’t keep your eyes off.

Nyman is the perfect mix of the clown and the raddled sleaze while Antolin, as his nervy ex-accountant sidekick, is winningly jangly, and his romance with actor-cum-secretary Ulla (Joanna Woodward, stupendous voice) is pulled off cutely.

Franz is an amusing cliche in lederhosen, albeit upstaged by his pigeons, which are a chorus-line of puppets, along with one sinister bird that looks like the emblematic eagle of the Luftwaffe.

Trevor Ashley plays Roger de Bris, the ultra camp director of the Broadway show who becomes a last-minute fill-in for the part of the Führer. When he appears, complete with gold dress and chariot, the comedy reaches its hysterical pitch.

The chorus line of actors here works in ingenious ways, doubling up to play the little old ladies from whom Bialystock extracts financial investment in exchange for sex games. This multitasking ensemble give the production the sense of a big Broadway musical despite its modest cast.

Brooks’ songs are still gorgeous in their deadpan humour and send-up of Broadway musical idiom, from the wide-eyed I Wanna Be a Producer to the hopeful We Can Do It and the deadly catchy Springtime for Hitler.

Yet still it is irresistible, absurd and joyful, both celebrating and sending up the power of theatre. A blast of a show.