Richard Kind is the new king of the West End as he steps into The Producers

Richard Kind isn’t just the King of Broadway, oh no, he’s now the King of the West End.

The ubiquitous character actor, whose credits stretch from Mad About You and Spin City to Curb Your Enthusiasm, Only Murders in the Building, and Inside Out (and, and, and), is making a rare return to the London stage as Max Bialystock in Patrick Marber’s revival of The Producers.

It’s a role Kind has down pat. He first played Max on Broadway in 2004, later reprising it at the Hollywood Bowl in 2012. But this time, he insists, he’s stepping into an entirely new show. Same lines, different rhythms, a smaller theatre, and a wildly different comedic sensibility. For Kind, that’s part of the thrill. Whether he’s recalibrating a joke based on how quickly an audience laughs (or doesn’t), embracing the production’s gleefully “bad-taste” sensibility, or simply stomping (never gliding) through a role made iconic by Zero Mostel and Nathan Lane, he’s recreating and rediscovering Max in real time, for six more weeks only. And the cardboard belt still fits.

Kind came to perform a hat-trick of three productions through music supervisor, Gareth Valentine, whom he’d worked with on Guys and Dolls. “David Babani [artistic director of the Menier Chocolate Factory] asked me if I would do it, and my manager said I couldn’t,” Kind says, “I’ve got three kids in college, I can’t afford to do theatre. And then Gareth sent me a message saying, ‘Talk to David.’ So, he calls, and he says, ‘It’s just seven weeks.’ And I went, ‘Wow. Seven weeks, London, The Producers. This is the best.’ I told my manager to make it work, and we made it work.”

He goes on to say that it is “the best decision,” as he continues to be a big fan of both the original movie, Zero Mostel’s Max, and of Brooks.

“I saw Mel [Brooks] in a restaurant, and you know what I said to him? I said, ‘Don’t f**k it up.’ He didn’t. In fact, he and Tom Meehan transformed it. The movie is still as great as ever, but the musical is a machine. It’s unbelievable how well this works.”

Kind continues: “I’m going to tell you something. This is nothing against me, nothing against Matthew [Broderick] and Nathan [Lane]. This play works with anybody. They didn’t think it did when Matthew and Nathan left. They were the best. They were great. But the piece still works. It works with me; it works without me. I did it with about eight Leos when I did it on Broadway. The three headliners were Hunter Foster, Alan Ruck, and Roger Bart, and they would throw guys in to see if one guy could be an understudy or could tour with it. And it [always] worked. It’s nuts.”

When performing the role on Broadway 20 years ago, Kind lost 30 pounds and titled it his Bialystock diet. He claims to still have the stamina: “My body hurts more, but I can still do it.” Speaking highly of fellow Max performers Lane and Andy Nyman (who he is stepping in for in the West End), he says: “Those guys, they soar. I just plop, plop, plop. I stomp, you know? There’s nothing light on my feet about me…”

“I loved watching Nathan. He’s so fast and he’s so good. You watch him and your breath is taken aback. He’s masterful. But I don’t do what he does. I knew my Max would be different. So, although it was daunting because the role is daunting, I wasn’t put off. Andy is very similar to Nathan. He just glides. Nathan glides. I don’t glide.”

Kind confesses, “I didn’t want to see Andy do it because I didn’t want to be influenced. There might be laughs that he gets that I don’t get. I talked this over with Andy – we knew each other before, too – and he, in turn, said, ‘I love you, but I can’t [see you either].'”

The Garrick Theatre has some 17,000 seats fewer than the Hollywood Bowl, and it changes every part of the performance. “The wonder of theatre, of course, is its intimacy. This is what you’re seeing tonight and you’re the only one seeing it. This is the shared bond,” he starts, “In a 700-seat theatre, my delivery is so different. Certain lines are iconic and delivered only one way.”

The example he gives is: “The reviews come out a lot faster when the critics leave at intermission,” he laughs that it just rolls off the tongue. “But there are scenes that are so much more intimate, like ‘Til Him,’ which is so sweet. At the beginning of ‘King of Broadway,’ I say, ‘I used to be the king.’ But who am I talking to? I’m talking to everybody. It’s so great to confess it to [the audience]. The guy is who he is, but the venue has changed and therefore, my approach to the theatricality has changed.”

There are certain lines that Kind uses as a bellwether to determine the audience. He has already deduced that “In London, you get some smart crowds,” sometimes hesitant on the laughs, but by the end, he’s a hit.

“The piece starts with me on a toilet, and it still works. There’s stuff here that Mel would say ‘No, no, no’ and instead, we’re just doing it. It’s bad-taste-city, which is what you need.”