Mel Brooks

JD Shapiro: I’m With Stupid

22/08/22

Gilded Balloon, Teviot (Billiard Room), Edinburgh

It’s a Monday night on the Fringe and it’s raining, which no doubt explains why the audience in the Billiard Room is best described as ‘modest’. No matter. JD Shapiro takes the small number in his stride and comes out with all guns blazing, ready to dish the dirt on his adventures in the screen trade. He warns us right up front he’s going to be dropping a lot of names tonight, but clearly has no fucks to give on that score. Drop them he does, in large quantities.

Shapiro is the kid from New Jersey, who arrived in LA with one hundred bucks in his pocket and a crazy dream in his head – a dream of making it big in Hollywood. He’s the guy who wrote a silly movie called Robin Hood: Men in Tights (on spec) and managed to get it into the hands of Mel Brooks, via the dentist that they both used. He’s also the guy who, when offered a first chance to direct a movie, turned down Dude, Where’s My Car? (yeah, I know, but it made a ton of money) in favour of a little thing called Battlefield Earth, starring John Travolta, which now rejoices under the title of the ‘worst film ever made’.

Shapiro is refreshingly open about it. He agrees that Battlefield Earth is terrible and tells us he spent some time trying to get his name removed from the project before it ever came out. Because, of course, the finished movie wasn’t what he’d envisaged at all… but you know, too many cooks and all that.

Shapiro is a likeable character with a real twinkle in his eye, a raconteur who interacts easily with us, offering us a series of projected illustrations from various points in his career, and his opinions on all manner of things. He talks about the time he took Michael Jackson for a ride in his jeep, the crazy projects he tried to launch with Marlon Brando (who actually seemed more interested in making cookies), and the fifteen years he spent working alongside his closest pal, Stan Lee. With names like this to drop, who wouldn’t go for it?

This show is part stand-up, part memoir, and it’s a splendid way to pass an hour on the Fringe.

I leave feeling strangely upbeat, thinking that I must have another look at the screen adaptation I made of one of my novels. I wonder if my dentist has any contacts? You never know…

Meanwhile, why not take the opportunity to nip down to the Billiard Room and experience for yourself the ups and downs of the film industry?

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

The Producers

 

29/11/18

Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s hard to imagine the kind of outrage that must have been generated by Mel Brooks’ The Producers on it’s original release in 1967, when it’s tap-dancing Nazi stormtroopers and flamboyantly gay directors must have touched a whole bunch of raw nerves. Adapted as a musical by Brooks and Thomas Meehan in the early naughties, it’s one of those rare creatures, a brilliant film, that became an excellent musical, that became a superb musical film. The Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group have some very big jackboots to fill here, but I’m happy to say that they rise to that daunting undertaking with their usual brio.

For those who are unfamiliar with the story, this is the tale of struggling theatre impresario, Max Bialystock (Max McLaughlin) and shy, nervy accountant Leo Bloom (Rob Merriam). The two men form an unlikely alliance when Bloom casually points out that a producer might easily take a bigger profit from a disastrous flop than from a major success, provided the account ledgers are suitably cooked. With this in mind, Bialystock sets about procuring two million dollars to fund a new musical by seducing every elderly lady in his little black book – and, once they have the budget, Bialystock and Bloom go in search of the worst show ever written, plus the worst actors to perform it. Pretty soon, they settle on a little piece promisingly entitled Springtime for Hitler…

This is unashamedly a creation of its era and happily, there’s been no attempt to soften the outrageous content to suit more modern sensibilities. The cast play it exactly as written, which leads to the only false note, when Bloom insults Bialystok by calling him ‘Fatty,’ (something that worked well enough for Zero Mostel and Nathan Lane, but is simply puzzling when applied to the lithe figure of McLaughlin). But that’s a minor niggle in what is, otherwise, a very satisfying production.

McLaughlin and Merriam make an appealing duo, while Georgie Rogers plays Swedish wannabe Ulla with the volume turned up to 11 and Will Peppercorn is a suitably deranged Franz Liebkind, a man who thinks nothing of wearing a German steel helmet and a swastika as leisurewear. Supporting actors make the most of their smaller roles (I particularly like Gordon Stackhouse’s turn as Carmen Ghia, a performance so archly camp that every gesture manages to evoke a belly laugh). But this musical is, of course, the very definition of an ensemble piece with twenty-two actors confidently moving around the small stage, singing and dancing up an absolute storm, even when incorporating their zimmer frames. And let’s not forget, there’s a seventeen piece band in this show, conducted by Caitlin Morgan, who deliver an assured musical accompaniment throughout.

Yes, this is a student show and of course, they don’t have the budget for fancy effects and state-of-the-art scenery, but when it comes to talent, The Producers is positively bursting with the stuff. If you like the original film, you’ll love this and you’re certain to come out, like me, with a great big smile on your face.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney