Mel Brooks, the writer behind some of Hollywood’s most raucous and irreverent comedies, is to make his solo debut on the London stage at the age of 88.
Part of the growing tradition of US legends reminiscing onstage, with Al Pacino and Sylvester Stallone having recently delivered similar sets, Brooks is to rake over his childhood, his rise to fame and his position as one of the foremost comedy writers of the 1980s and 90s – all with live musical interludes.
“I am thrilled to bring this introspective retrospective of my life and career to the West End stage,” he said in a statement. “It will be an evening the audience will never forget – whether they want to or not!”
After a spell in the army and another earning his comedy stripes in New York State resorts, he broke into TV with spy sitcom Get Smart, and then film with The Producers – its tale of a pair of Broadway producers trying to make a flop also ended up becoming a hit musical.
He went on to make a string of hits, spoofing the conventions of Hollywood from within: Blazing Saddles inverted the western, while Young Frankenstein tackled horror, Spaceballs the sci-fi epic, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights the swashbuckler. He also took cameo roles in many of his films, and won Emmy awards three years in a row for his supporting role in the sitcom Mad About You.
The performance, Mel Brooks Live in London, is on 22 March at the Prince of Wales theatre, with tickets on sale from Tuesday 3 March. It’s not the only chance to catch some of Brooks’s deadpan wackiness this spring – he has also given his blessing to a stage adaptation of his early two-hander, The 2000 Year Old Man, in which the titular man is interviewed about his remarkable, woman-chasing lifespan. It plays at JW3 from 9-22 March.
