The Producers at a glance

Show
The Producers
Venue
Garrick Theatre, West End
Address
2 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0HH
Nearest station
Leicester Square (3 min walk); Charing Cross (5 min)
Genre
Musical comedy (satire)
Running time
Approximately 2 hours 30 minutes, including one interval
Age guidance
13+ (sexual content, satirical Nazi imagery, strobe effects, strong language)
Dates
30 August 2025 – 19 September 2026 (currently booking; previously extended twice)
Press night
15 September 2025
Price range
From £25 (typically £25–£150)
Music & lyrics
Mel Brooks
Book
Mel Brooks & Thomas Meehan
Director
Patrick Marber
Choreographer
Lorin Latarro
Awards
Original Broadway: 12 Tony Awards (record). London 2004: Olivier Best New Musical. This revival: 4 Olivier nominations 2026

Expert Review: The Producers at the Garrick

4.2
★★★★☆

LTH Expert Rating

Reviewed by the London Theatre Hub editorial team. Last updated: 11 May 2026.

The Verdict

The first major London revival of Mel Brooks' 2001 Tony juggernaut had every reason to be cautious. The original Broadway production, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, won 12 Tony Awards and set a record that still stands. The 2004 West End run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane was an event. The 2005 film adaptation was less so. Reviving a 25-year-old satire about Nazis in 2026 — in a moment when far-right politics has returned to the streets of London and several other capitals — could have gone wrong in any number of ways. Patrick Marber's revival doesn't make a single one of them.

Marber, on his first musical after a career of plays (Closer, Dealer's Choice, Leopoldstadt) and Alan Partridge, trusts the material. He doesn't update the 1959 setting. He doesn't soften the satire. He doesn't try to comment on the current moment except by letting the show land and trusting an audience to read it. The result is the funniest two-and-a-half hours in the West End — a production that earns its giggles, its gasps and its standing ovations in equal measure. Andy Nyman and Marc Antolin make a brilliant double act, Trevor Ashley walks off with every scene as Roger DeBris, and Lorin Latarro's choreography — which includes the best zimmer-frame chorus line you'll ever see — is its own act of comic genius. Four 2026 Olivier nominations, including Best Musical Revival, are well earned. Only Time Out's three stars among the major reviews dissents.

What Makes It Special

  • Andy Nyman and Marc Antolin as Bialystock and Bloom. Neither tries to imitate Mostel or Wilder, Lane or Broderick. Nyman gives Bialystock a klezmer-flavoured pity that's both seedy and genuinely sympathetic; Antolin's Bloom is constantly about three seconds from a panic attack. The chemistry is the engine of the whole show. (Richard Kind covered Max for a seven-week visiting season ending 6 May 2026; Nyman returns from 11 May for the rest of the run.)
  • Trevor Ashley as Roger DeBris. A scene-stealing, gloriously camp turn as the worst director in New York. The "Springtime for Hitler" Brünnhilde-Hitler hybrid alone is worth the price of admission. The Financial Times called him "a wonderful double act" with Nyman; we'd argue he's a triple act on his own.
  • Lorin Latarro's choreography. Jaunty, ridiculous and packed with detail — including a chorus line of pensioners with zimmer frames that one Substack critic accurately called the funniest sequence she'd seen all year. Patrick Marber's lightness of touch with the comic timing is matched here by movement that's never just decoration.
  • The score, rediscovered. Mel Brooks wrote his first Broadway score in his 70s — he's now 99 — and it's stuffed with affectionate musical-theatre pastiche. "Where Did We Go Right?" echoes My Fair Lady's "You Did It"; "'Til Him" pays homage to Hello, Dolly!'s "It Only Takes a Moment"; there are a dozen other nods to West Side Story, 42nd Street, The Wizard of Oz, Guys and Dolls. Funnier than you remember.
  • The Garrick over Drury Lane. The 2004 West End production played the 2,200-seat Theatre Royal Drury Lane. This revival, transferred from the 180-seat Menier Chocolate Factory, plays the 718-seat Garrick. The mid-size venue suits the show — big enough to feel like a proper West End night out, small enough that every facial expression registers.
  • The political moment, accidentally. Several critics noted that watching audiences belly-laugh at swastika-strewn antics on the same day far-right protesters marched through central London made for a curious and unexpectedly moving experience. Brooks always insisted comedy was the most effective weapon against fascism. The production doesn't argue the point. It just demonstrates it.

You'll love The Producers if you...

  • Enjoy broad, bawdy, lovingly old-school musical comedy
  • Want a guaranteed belly-laugh night out at the theatre
  • Appreciate camp, satire and double-entendres delivered with full conviction
  • Are a Mel Brooks fan, or have always wanted to see what the 12-Tony fuss was about
  • Loved the 1968 film or the 2004 Drury Lane production and want to see how this revival compares

It might not be for you if you...

  • Find satirical Nazi imagery uncomfortable regardless of comedic intent
  • Prefer contemporary, dramatically serious musicals (Hadestown, Cabaret)
  • Want sharp current-affairs commentary — Time Out felt the 1959 setting now feels dated
  • Are bringing under-13s — the humour is firmly adult
  • Dislike traditional Broadway-style big musical numbers and prefer through-sung contemporary scores

Best for

  • Musical comedy fans
  • Mel Brooks devotees
  • Date nights
  • Office socials
  • Tourists wanting "a big West End musical"
  • Teens 13+

Not the strongest fit for under-13s, audiences sensitive to satirical Nazi imagery, or anyone seeking contemporary dramatic musical theatre.

Critical Reception

Press night was 15 September 2025. The London critical reception has been broadly enthusiastic — overwhelmingly four-star with three five-star outliers and one three-star qualified dissent from Time Out. Critics agreed the production's commitment to camp, the central double act, and the live band-and-chorus energy were its strengths. Verified star ratings from the major UK publications:

  • The Guardian ★★★★
  • The Times ★★★★★
  • The Telegraph ★★★★
  • Evening Standard ★★★★★
  • Financial Times ★★★★
  • The Stage ★★★★
  • Time Out ★★★
  • BroadwayWorld ★★★★★
  • The Independent ★★★★
  • Mail on Sunday ★★★★★

Source: published reviews of the West End production at the Garrick Theatre, September 2025 – February 2026. Average critic rating across major UK publications: 4.3★. Time Out's three stars represents the lone qualified dissent; the production was nominated for four 2026 Olivier Awards including Best Musical Revival.

Everything You Need to Know

What happens in The Producers?

It's 1959, and Broadway producer Max Bialystock is washed up. His latest opus — Funny Boy, a musical based on Hamlet — bombs during its opening number. Max pays the rent by seducing little old ladies for "investment" cheques he never uses on actual productions. Enter Leo Bloom, a meek accountant from Whitehall & Marks sent to audit Max's books.

The premise

Going over Max's chaotic accounts, Leo realises something curious: a producer could theoretically make more money from a flop than a hit. Raise far more than you need, ensure the show closes on opening night, pocket the difference, and the IRS never asks questions. Max seizes on the idea. He bullies a panicked Leo into joining him as his partner. Their plan: find the worst script ever written, the worst director in New York, the worst possible cast, and raise two million dollars to put it on.

The worst script in the world

They find their script in Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden, written by an unrepentant German nationalist named Franz Liebkind who keeps pigeons on a Greenwich Village rooftop and still wears his old uniform. Max and Leo flatter, cajole and finally pressure Liebkind into signing over the rights. The first act builds methodically: their worst director (the gloriously camp Roger DeBris), their worst cast (a hippie called LSD as Hitler), their Swedish bombshell secretary Ulla, and the steady accumulation of cheques from Max's little old ladies, set to one of the funniest numbers in the show, "Along Came Bialy".

Opening night

The end of the first act is the gloriously offensive showstopper itself: Springtime for Hitler, the staging within the staging. Goose-stepping chorines, a dancing swastika formation, Roger DeBris stepping in as Hitler at the last moment in full sequined fabulousness. Max and Leo, watching from the back of the house, are horrified for all the wrong reasons: the audience isn't walking out. They're laughing. They think it's brilliant satire.

The aftermath

The second act is Max and Leo realising they have a smash hit on their hands and owe their investors two million dollars they spent on a Rolls-Royce. The plot accelerates into farce: a courtroom showdown, a stint in prison, a desperate attempt by Leo to recover the money by running away to Rio with Ulla. The act builds to one of musical theatre's most affectionate buddy-reconciliations — "'Til Him", the homage to Hello, Dolly!'s "It Only Takes a Moment" — before resolving in a final scene that's all the more satisfying for being entirely silly.

What the show is really about

Underneath the gags, The Producers is a love story — between two desperate, unloved men who find in each other the partnership neither has had before. It's also Mel Brooks' most personal piece of writing: a Jewish-American comedian, who served in the US Army in WWII, insisting that the most effective response to fascism is to laugh at it. The Patrick Marber revival foregrounds both: the buddy-romance element is unusually tender, and the satire lands with curious new force in 2026.

Why the show matters

Brooks' 1968 film The Producers won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and established his career as a comedy filmmaker. The 2001 musical, written when Brooks was 75, became the most-Tonyed show in Broadway history (12 wins from 15 nominations). The 2004 London production transferred to Drury Lane and won the Olivier for Best New Musical. This 2026 revival — the first in nearly 20 years — has been nominated for four Oliviers including Best Musical Revival. Few shows have such a continuous trail of awards and acclaim.