The Producers

Anton Berezin was the alternate Max Bialystock when The Producers first toured Australia just over 20 years ago, but frustratingly he never got the chance to put the hat on.

Like a dormant volcano waiting a long time to erupt, Berezin filled the stage with oceans of lava-like chutzpah, imbuing the zany and shonky character with comet-like intensity.

Hey, I bet Reg Livermore couldn’t do Yiddish like that!  It was like Broadway but up close.

Audiences of the Hayes Theatre sniffed that something special was going to happen in this production, and it remarkably sold out before opening, but is now transferring to the Riverside Theatre Parramatta next month.

They were right. This production is a hit like Springtime for Hitler in Germany, but less unexpected.

A whole team of stars in the cast twinkled. Des Flanagan had the awkward charm of accountant Leo Bloom down pat.  Blake Erickson milked every pint of wit from the character of outrageous director Roger De Bris.

Jordan Shea was hilarious as the Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind. Alexandra Cashmere as Ulla was striking and how cute that Chloe Dallimore, the Australian original Ulla, is on the team as an intimacy coach.

They certainly needed one. They don’t make musicals like this anymore. Max Bialystock raises his money for his Broadway musicals by raising his manhood to woo cheques from little old ladies. The coach gets a workout in a cosy kind of way.

The stereotypes about gays, jews and woman are no longer politically correct. But thankfully no-one with a red pen has been allowed to touch Mel Brooks – laughing at everyone is the best tonic.

The Producers is a big musical and fitting it into the Hayes Theatre is like squeezing a rhinoceros into a tuxedo (I pinched that line from the real Producer Joshua Robson in the program.)

It was managed oh so cleverly by set designer Nick Fry by integrating the lighting into the walls which had satirical shows in lights such as Goys and Dolls and moved only slightly.  The opening doors of the office and the minimalistic roll on of a desk and couch was enough.

The only thing missing was the Zimmer frames in the famous granny dance, but instead they used canes.

There were no compromises on costumes or choreography and the band of eight under the baton of Osibi Akerejola, sounded sensational.