Sacked Dreyfuss confesses

Richard Dreyfuss confessed that he could not sing a note or dance one step - days before he was dropped from his starring role in the West End musical The Producers.

The actor's departure from the £5.5 million show this week was blamed on an operation he underwent for a herniated disc earlier this year and the recurrence of a shoulder injury - which meant he could not cope with the "physical rigours" of performance.

However, it has emerged he let slip his shortcomings

in an interview days before he left the cast of the Mel Brooks show. Speaking last week, the 56-year-old admitted: "Well, I can't [sing or dance]. Actually, I sing like a seal and dance like your Uncle Leo at that wedding where he got up and went 'ya ya ya'.

"Now whenever I admit this, there's a co-producer on the show who goes: 'No! No! Don't say that to journalists!' But there's no way for me not to say it because, hey, you're going to ask, right?

"I told him, 'Look, take out an ad on the front page of each arts section in town and have it say, 'Please don't think that you're paying to see Richard Dreyfuss sing and dance because you'll only be pissed off '."

The former Jaws star said: "When I saw The Producers I didn't jump on my cell phone and say 'I need this part'. What happened was I said to a friend I'd taken to the show, 'Boy, that would be a fun part to do' and someone overheard me and called Mel and Mel called me."

In an indication of tensions during rehearsals, Dreyfuss added: "Tell Mel Brooks this: 'Please don't yell at Richard. Richard doesn't like to be yelled at. Let's have a relaxed and creative atmosphere.

"Richard thinks of this as fun, not business. Business is about bullying and being nasty and if any of that is directed at him he shuts down because he feels it's all his fault'." The actor, who flew home to the US yesterday, gave the insight in an interview with the Evening Standard's Metrolife magazine, which was due to be published this Thursday to mark the show's opening.

Dreyfuss is being replaced as largerthan-life producer Max Bialystock in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, show by its former Broadway star Nathan Lane. The Tony award-winner has flown from the US to join last-minute rehearsals - in time for preview performances on Friday.

Its producers insist the premiere will

go ahead as planned. Dreyfuss, who had openly admitted he was suffering physically from the role, is said by insiders to have exasperated company managers by failing to toe the PR line.

In a TV interview with Frank Skinner last week, he said nobody should see The Producers until the New Year, joking: "The general managers will have just had heart attacks."