I saw the Producers at the Royal Exchange in Manchester which is the UKs largest theatre in the round! I heard amazing things about this show and its storyline so I had high expectations !
You’ll be glad to know that they were filled and more! This was such a fun old fashioned musical about showbiz. It was outrageous, funny, offensive and entertaining!
This piece worked really well in the round because you are so close to the actors and you were fully immersed in the energetic show! The story revolves around a Producer and an accountant that wanted to be a producer with him and they find out that they can make more money producing a flop due to the producer running out of ideas to fill houses. The flop they produce is an outrageous musical called “Springtime for hitler”! Yes Hitler!
This show was perfectly cast with Julius D’Silva playing Max Bialystock. He had a huge presence about him and played the character with heart even though you think he just wants to make money. Stuart Neal Played Leo Bloom innocently and anxiously. I particularly enjoyed his physical comedy and Characterisation. Emily-Mae made a Perfect Ulla who was innocent and hilarious.
The whole style of this show is quite over the top and “showbizzy” which was what I was expecting with glittering costumes and dance numbers which were executed brilliantly in a smaller in the round space. The small band were very impressive and loud playing the wonderful music of Mel Brookes which reminded me of Funny Girl a lot! Very old fashioned jazzy musical theatre.
The use of the revolve was very clever with it not being overused but when it was it worked a treat! The lighting design for this show was great with dazzling lights along the tiers of the theatre to give it the theatre magic. And also in the Non-Theatre scenes lighting was used very well to tell us where we were because there was not a lot of set. I really liked the direction for this show because with it being in the round every side can’t miss on anything so the character were moving around a lot so all audiences could see which gave the production loads of energy!
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