Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.From the murky waters of the fashion industry in the recently opened The Devil Wears Prada, we move to another pool of sharks and perilous uncertainties: musical theatre. Mel Brooks’s archly satirical and defiantly bad taste The Producers runs on the simple but irresistible prospect of a sure-fire flop turning out to be a riotous success.When has-been Broadway producer Max Bialystock (Andy Nyman) teams up with accountant and wannabe Broadway producer Leo Bloom (Marc Antolin) to cook the books by putting on a show so bad that no one will think to check the accounts, they fail to reckon with the possibility of accidentally staging a hit. So they are blindsided when the show in question — a terrible musical called Springtime for Hitler, featuring dancing Stormtroopers, warbling Nazis and Hitler floating around in a kimono — is hailed by press and public alike as a “satirical masterpiece”.The irony of Brooks’s 2001 musical comedy (written with Thomas Meehan and based on Brooks’s 1967 film) is that it pulls a similar trick itself, turning a ridiculous story, stuffed with questionable jokes and offensive stereotypes, into an absurdly enjoyable show, mocking fascism and lampooning the traditional Broadway musical while revelling in its glories. It also throws down a gauntlet to any director to follow suit by being good at being bad. At London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, director Patrick Marber, choreographer Lorin Latarro and the versatile cast go at it with unadulterated glee, plundering every cliché in the book and mischievously pickpocketing the musicals tradition. So Max’s klezmer-inflected lament “The King of Broadway” comes accompanied by a ragged ensemble of down-and-out New Yorkers performing something akin to the famous Fiddler on the Roof “bottle dance”; a chorus of lusty, rich old ladies tango on Zimmer frames in “Along Came Bialy” and a bunch of accountants quit tapping their calculators and start tapping their toes in Leo’s fever dream, “I Wanna Be a Producer”.Harry Morrison’s alarmingly volatile Nazi playwright Franz lurches around in lederhosen and a helmet, ricocheting from nostalgia to hysteria as he bashes his way through German folk songs, while “frivolous musicals” director Roger De Bris (Trevor Ashley) drags it up in an apartment where even the statues emote. Meanwhile Leo and Ulla — the Swedish love interest, played with wonderful self-awareness by Joanna Woodward — spend their big romantic number clambering around the set in the manner of Gene Kelly et al in Singin’ in the Rain.Some of the humour now lands as blunt more than outrageous — Leo’s shock at seeing Roger De Bris in a gown, for instance, feels very dated. And there is a sense, in the first half in particular, of selling some gags too hard: every moment is dialled up to the max. But the show relaxes more as it proceeds and what makes it is the genial cast.At its heart are Nyman and Antolin, both terrific and a wonderful double act. Nyman’s Max, with his greasy waistcoat and unkempt hair, is a ball of ingenious energy, buzzing about the set, delivering his patter-songs at breakneck speed as his mind darts from opportunity to opportunity. Antolin’s gawky Leo is funny, precise and touching. And that’s one of the surprising pleasures of the show. Despite all the absurdity, at its heart, it’s rather sweet: a ridiculous love-letter to friendship and to the sheer craziness and passion of show business.★★★★☆To March 1 2025, menierchocolatefactory.com
