The Producers... reproduced

They make an unlikely duo: the Hollywood star and the British comedian.

But today it was announced that Richard Dreyfuss and Lee Evans are to star in a West End version of huge Broadway hit The Producers.

The musical, based on Mel Brooks's classic 1968 movie, for which he won an Oscar for best screenplay, will open next year.

Speaking from New York, Brooks said of Dreyfuss and Evans: "What an act, what a double. These guys looks so good together - they were born to play these parts."

The Producers centres on a theatrical scam and boasts the deliberately distasteful number Springtime For Hitler. Dreyfuss plays the corrupt Max Bialystock and Evans the naive Leo Bloom.

Another Oscar winner, Dreyfuss has appeared on the West End stage only once before. He said: "I saw the show and said to myself, 'This looks like so much fun - I'd like to do this.' I told someone and two days later Mel called and asked if I was serious." Dreyfuss added: "It is a great musical and it makes you laugh so much you want to spit your milk up.

"My voice is terrible. I sound okay in the shower but then it is hard to hear over the water."

When it opened on Broadway, The Producers swept the Tony Awards and has been a sell-out ever since. Evans said: "I am delighted. This is the kind of job that doesn't come along very often."

The Producers opens at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in November but will face opposition from other musicals - Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman In White, directed by Sir Trevor Nunn; Billy Elliot, with songs by Sir Elton John; and Sir Cameron Mackintosh's Mary Poppins, directed by Sir Richard Eyre.