Stagebugs Productions: Young Frankenstein review

Capturing the zany Mel Brooks sensibility, StageBugs Productions earn abundant laughs with their deliciously daffy production of Young Frankenstein. The overblown 2007 Broadway premiere season Young Frankenstein proved unable to capture the zeitgeist of mega-hit Mel Brooks stage adaptation The Producers. More successful was the reduced and revised West End 2017 production of Young Frankenstein, upon which this staging is based. Smaller again here, the musical is actually very well served by the independent theatre-scale budget, tying in perfectly to the self-aware parody of schlocky early Hollywood horror films. The musical is a solid crowd pleaser, in particular in the way it breezes swiftly from song to wacky song, with some boffo production numbers along the way. It could be argued that some of the sexism and mental ableism are in poor taste, but, as quoted In the program, Mel Brooks’ humour relies on the basis that “Good taste is the enemy of comedy.” Brooks’ 1974 film Young…