Sacked Producers star 'would return'

Goodman says he was a success in The Producers

The UK actor who was fired from Broadway's most successful show for years has told BBC News Online he would still return to his role in The Producers if asked.

Henry Goodman said he had a "thrilling" time and the audiences went wild for his performances - but he was sacked without warning after four weeks.

The Producers is expected to come to London in 2003 and Goodman said despite his treatment, he would be happy to reprise his role for the West End.

I don't have a traumatic memory of it, and I'd be happy to get up there and do it again

Henry Goodman

He described his sacking as a "fiasco" and a "mistake", but that he had not been dispirited by the "frustrating and upsetting" events.

Goodman, who is about to star in a revival of Sondheim's musical Follies in London, admitted that it was "highly unlikely" that he would be asked to return to the show.

Producers had said he was fired because he did not have the right chemistry on stage.

"There may be something that they wanted that I didn't do - I'm happy to acknowledge that," he told BBC News Online.

"But my experience was that I had a fantastic time doing it, and I'm quite happy to have a good time again."

Follies is staged at the Royal Festival Hall

But he disputed the producers' claims that audiences did not respond to him.

"I wish I could play the tapes of the laughter," he said. "This is what's so difficult to get across - I have affirmation that my performance was enjoyed, and thrillingly so.

"[The producers] decided - for marketing reasons and other reasons - that they wanted to do something different.

"I don't have a traumatic memory of it, and I'd be happy to get up there and do it again," he said.

Goodman joined the Mel Brooks show when the acting pair who had made it one of the biggest critical and commercial successes in recent Broadway history - Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane - left in March 2002.

He signed a nine-month contract to take over Lane's character, the slapstick theatre producer Max Bialystock.

Singing

The show was making $1m (£634,000) per week - but Goodman said that success would have continued if he had stayed.

The producers "needed something else", he said.

"It wasn't because I went out there nightly and couldn't do it, it wasn't because my singing or dancing or acting wasn't great, it wasn't because the audiences weren't on their feet," he said.

"They either get up and scream and go nuts at the end of a number or they don't. And they did. So my experience of doing it was - this is thrilling."

Glamour

Goodman said he was looking forward to returning to Broadway in his next role there, a more low-key Molière play.

In Follies, a tragi-comic musical, he plays the husband of an ageing showgirl who joins a reunion in the run-down theatre that was the scene of their former glories.

"You get the Vaudeville acts - the comedy, the glamour, the sexiness, but you also get the very sad, moving thing about these people who have changed. There's a lot of laughs in there too," he said.

"I've got 30 years of experience and awards and great acclaimed performances for years and years and years, I don't want the only thing that is important to be The Producers."