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Mel Brooks has ways of making us laugh

It's a hard task to upstage Bert Newton. But a short, Jewish-American showbusiness legend spruiking a musical about Hitler can be relied on to do his best.

Enter Mel Brooks. The creator of the Broadway-conquering musical The Producers was on hand yesterday for a sneak preview of the show before its Australian premiere on Saturday, and all around him might as well have been invisible.

At 77, Brooks took to the stage at Melbourne's Princess Theatre and swapped Nazi salutes (with comb moustache) with television luminary and lederhosened cast member Bert Newton.

"I can't believe he's not a Nazi kraut son of a gun," Brooks boomed in his raspy Brooklyn drawl. "He's possibly the best Franz Liebkind we ever got."

The Producers is still going strong in New York, three years after it opened on Broadway and netted a record 12 Tony awards. The musical - which in Melbourne will star Reg Livermore, Tom Burlinson, Chloe Dallimore, Tony Sheldon and Newton - is based on Brooks's 1968 film of the same name.

It tells the story of producer Max Bialystock (Livermore) and his accountant Leo Bloom (Burlinson), who hatch a scheme to raise more money than needed for a sure-fire Broadway dud and pocket the difference, with the help of their statuesque Swedish secretary Ulla (Dallimore).

They hire the worst director, Roger DeBris (Sheldon), to direct the worst musical they can find - Springtime for Hitler, written by neo-Nazi pigeon breeder Franz Liebkind (Newton). Their plans are shot when the show becomes an overnight sensation.

Brooks's talent is mind-boggling. He not only wrote the book and screenplay for The Producers, but penned all the music and lyrics when he decided to turn his film into a musical.

Yesterday he was full of praise for the Australian cast.

"I am so happy and so blessed with this incredibly, incredibly talented company at . . . such . . . low . . . wages," he said, drawing it out for effect.

Brooks is working on a new movie version of The Producers. The movie that became a musical is to become a movie based on the musical, with Nicole Kidman likely to star as Ulla. "Universal Pictures asked us. They made us a generous offer. We thought what the hell," Brooks said.

The Producers opens in Melbourne on Saturday, and comes to Sydney early next year.

Posted by thinkum at April 14, 2004 02:02 PM