Andy Nyman is Max Bialystock in West End revival of The Producers

Andy Nyman is a multi-hyphenate. In a career spanning decades, he has worked as an actor, writer, director, magician and singer. In recent years he has become a West End star, acting in plays as diverse as Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen and Hello, Dolly! The latter was Nyman’s first venture into musical theatre since his turn as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, a performance that earned him an Olivier Award nomination.

Now he is returning to another iconic Jewish musical role, Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks’ The Producers, after a limited run at the Menier Chocolate Factory that ran from late 2024 to March 2025. The first major revival in the West End will open at the Garrick Theatre in September.

The production’s star first saw the original 1967 film on the BBC as a child after the news on a Monday night. His parents were avid filmgoers and encouraged their son to stay up and watch the movies they deemed worthwhile. He explains: “Not only did I love it but the reason I loved it so much was hearing my dad absolutely schticking with laughter in the most extraordinary way. I loved Mel Brooks from that moment on.”

Nyman saw the film a couple more times as a young man before the musical opened on Broadway in the mid-2000s and he went with his family. He later took his parents to the West End transfer and has “very dear memories of both the film and the show”.

He is unequivocal when speaking about the importance of The Producers: “It’s an incredible piece of work that’s had three separate lives. When the film came out it was spitting distance from World War Two. The bravery of that piece of writing, the bravery of Mel Brooks’ mishigas, to be able to process the pain and use laughter as a healing device is amazing.”

That original audience would have contained many directly affected by the war, something that was not the case when the musical opened in the 2000s: “The world was in a cosy place so the politics of it didn’t really matter because the world felt safer. It was an amazing piece of work from an artist reinventing themselves at 70 years old.”

Now, a quarter of a century on, the world has changed again with the rise of the far right and this production reflects that. “It’s really stripped back and taken back to the dirty fingernails of the original film,” says Nyman. “The politics feel more essential now than they ever have. You hear waves of relief from the audience. It’s incredible that this man’s work is more relevant, important and funnier than it’s ever been.”

Nyman has achieved a great deal in a number of different mediums but one of his proudest moments came working on this production when he wrote a gag for his hero: “There is a joke at the end of the show, an announcement that comes on and it’s Mel Brooks. They’d asked him to do the announcement about turning your phones off and he didn’t want to do it.”

The show’s star came up with an alternative and the response from Brooks, recounted in a pitch perfect impression of the 99-year-old, was, “I love it! I’ll do it!”

The unshakable self-belief that allows one to pitch a joke to one of the most important figures in comedy history or take on roles immortalised by others on screen has been part of Nyman’s character since his early days in entertainment. He was offered what Channel 4 thought would be a five-year deal doing “mind reading magic” when work as an actor was hard to come by. Despite having both a baby and a mortgage to think about, he turned down the money because he prioritised happiness and did not want to jeopardise an acting career. Instead, he told the channel he would be happy to work with whoever they did find to front the thing. He ultimately wrote and directed countless hours of television and theatre with the mentalist who took the role – one Derren Brown.

Another collaborator he met not through a television channel but rather on Jewish summer camp in his teens. That chance meeting with Jeremy Dyson, the non-acting member of The League of Gentlemen, came in 1981, and ultimately resulted in Ghost Stories, the 2010 play that they adapted for the big screen in 2017. That project was hugely informed by their Jewishness, as is much of Andy’s work, he feels.

He was brought up in a kosher home in Leicester, “traditional but not desperately frum”. He no longer keeps kosher but is, he insists, “spiritually aligned to Jewishness”. He thinks about it all the time, says Modeh Ani when he wakes up and often recites the Shema at night. He has maintained a close friendship with the rabbi in Leicester, lays tefillin on occasion but, “being a good Jew is not about how often you go to shul.”

Mel Brooks is living proof of that assertion, one of the greatest living Jews who is anything but orthodox in any sense of the word. His latest Max, Nyman, has become best known for both horror and musicals – unlikely bedfellows perhaps. Like the man behind The Producers, he refuses to be pigeonholed. Brooks is one of only 21 people in history to have won the EGOT (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony), which gives some indication as to his range.

While he considers himself an actor first and foremost, Andy has finally come up with an answer that covers all bases when people ask him what he does. It is a categorisation that Brooks would undoubtedly approve of. These days, he says: “I’m in showbusiness.”