AFTER sell-outs on Broadway and the West End, Mel Brooks' outrageous musical The Producers finally arrived in Birmingham to rapturous applause.
The show, in which Broadway producer Max Bialystock, played by Cory English, and accountant Leo Bloom, played by Joe Pasquale, hatch a financial scam concerning a sure-fire theatrical flop is everything a full-scale musical should be.
Brooks' writing is so sharp it is impossible not to laugh at the spectacle - and his tendency to poke fun at everyone means even the most potentially offensive jokes are part of the humour.
The delivery is just as witty with English giving Bialystock every ounce of his being and Pasquale turning out a bumbling but loveable Bloom.
Russ Abbot, who plays theatrical director Roger DeBris, had some fantastic show-stopping moments - not least as an all-singing all-dancing Adolf Hitler.
