With The Producers, and particularly this production of it, there are vastly enjoyable levels of meta-theatrics that make it theatre-nerd nirvana.

The Producers is a show within a show and a comedy about a satire – which is a version of having your cake and eating it, too. It’s an heroic display of just how far you can go in the commercial theatre without being booed, banned or, these days, cancelled via the power of social media. (The answer is quite a long way indeed.)

In addition, The Producers takes a gleeful potshot at Broadway itself and is an equal-opportunity giver of offence. The targets include, but are not limited to, young women, old women, accountants, theatrical producers and, this being the musical theatre, gay men. And, of course, Jews. Oh, and Nazis.

The Producers started life as a Mel Brooks film and then became a Mel Brooks Broadway hit. Brooks wrote music and lyrics and co-wrote the book with Thomas Meehan, the show ran for six years and won a zillion Tony awards.

The staging at Hayes Theatre Co asks if you can take a large-scale, mega-successful Broadway musical and shoehorn it into one of Sydney’s smallest spaces (seating capacity 111) without...