Last seen in London almost 18 years ago, it’s easy to forget what a phenomenon it is. The producers was at the time – by far the most publicized musical of the century until the emergence of Hamilton.

Adapted from his own relatively obscure 1967 film, Brooks’s story about two unscrupulous Broadway producers who stage a dreadfully distasteful play about Hitler was the defining show of the 2000s. But times have changed: The producers is less revered than it was in its day, and it’s certainly hard to imagine it returning to its gigantic former home at the Theater Royal Drury Lane.

But that’s not the question. It’s a coup for little Menier to have marked the first British revival of the series – and indeed, the first original British production (the previous one being a Broadway transfer). The run is sold out, so it’s a success, even if the rules of the game have changed a little (a single show at Drury Lane has a capacity greater than an entire week of performances at the Menier).

Patrick Marber has never directed a musical before, but his diverse career has prepared him well for this production, with his roots in comedy with Today’s day et al until his recent engagement with his Judaism via Leopoldstadt And What we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank.

It’s a much harsher and more sinister vision The producers than the polished original production – the squalor of mid-20th century New York is practically an extra character, and in a career-best tone, Andy Nyman’s unscrupulous protagonist, Max Bialystock, looks positively Dickensian with his stained vest, his dirty jacket and his lanky hair.

Licking his wounds from yet another production failure, Max meets nervous young accountant Leo Bloom (Marc Antolin), who idly thinks that a lot of money could be made by deliberately staging a chess show and falsifying the books to make it look like. you spent all the investors money on this (when you actually used it).

Devoid of any moral sense, Max is enthusiastic about the idea and, soon after, he inspires a hesitant Leo to co-produce a surefire failure: Spring for Hitlera terrible apology for the German dictator written by the Nazi Franz Liebkind (Harry Morrison, glorious), a pigeon fanatic. With the addition of pathologically flamboyant director Roger de Bris (Trevor Ashley) at the helm, there’s no chance this thing will succeed. Or is it possible?

This remains a very funny premise. The biggest problem with the recovery The producers – apart from the feeling that it has simply already had its day – is that social attitudes have evolved a lot since 1967 (date of filming of the film) and even 2001 (date of beginning of the musical), and that a production in 2024 must take into account various factors. the stereotypes of Jewish people, homosexuals, women as sexual objects, as well as all Nazis.

I’d say Marber tops them all quite deftly with his grimy, funny, well-judged production. Max certainly embodies more than a few tropes, but they’re exuberantly co-opted by the Jewish writer, director and actor’s triple whammy. Nyman’s Max is a terrible human being in many ways, but he has an irrepressibility that is ultimately very charming. Ulla, Joanna Woodward’s Swedish actress, is pleasantly fussy but has less of the carnal side of the cartoons of previous incarnations. Ashley’s capricious De Bris is so scathing that it feels less like a mockery of gay stereotypes than it was. It’s still a Mel Brooks show: you might be offended. But Marber injects a more sensible sensibility when it counts.

In reality, it comes down to the Nazis. The producers was originally broadcast at a time when homegrown fascism seemed to be a fairly abstract concept – an era of neoconservatism and war of terror, during which the musical was gleefully in bad taste (remember there were many more Holocaust and World War II survivors in 2001) but did not necessarily seem particularly topical.

I don’t want to be melodramatic about this, but fascism is much more visible these days and sincerely pro-Hitler accounts are extremely easy to find on Twitter and the like.

And actually, I think that gives Marber’s point of view The producers a certain advantage: the magnificent sequence representing Spring for Hitler and its title song is a tsunami of mockery aimed at the trappings of the far right, erasing the gesticulating masculinity, portentous symbolism and pompous philosophy of Nazism with a hallucinatory wave of flowers, glitter, high kicks and d giant money. Würste. It’s incredibly funny – Spring for Hitler itself must be a contender for the funniest showtune ever written – but it’s also merciless, a voracious, annihilating mockery.

The producers is a little dated, a little slow to get going and is devoid of the exciting hype that made it fizz and crackle last time. But his pillorying of fascist iconography remains hysterically funny and steely – perhaps sharper than it was before.