Away with Pirates, The Merry Widow and Oklahoma! — all excellent shows for an amateur company to perform, but for their annual outing at the New Theatre this year Oxford Operatic Society has taken on a big, and very different challenge: one of the first amateur productions of Mel Brooks’s spoof showbiz musical The Producers.

Based on Brooks’s 1968 film of the same name, the show pokes unguarded fun at Broadway producers, gay theatre directors, and pale-faced accountants.

The story concerns Max Bialystock, a stupendously unsuccessful Broadway producer. What is he to do?

Enter Leo Bloom, a nerdy accountant, who quickly spots a way to cook Bialystock’s books. What is required, he tells Bialystock, is a gold-plated turkey, a show that dies on its opening night. Bialystock finds the very thing: a musical called Springtime for Hitler.

One further component is required to ensure failure: a useless director. The thoroughly gay, and thoroughly useless Roger de Bris is just the man for the job.

The Producers was originally designed for a cast of 25, but Oxford Operatic director Edward Blagrove has doubled that number, providing (with choreographers Kirsty Beer and Joanne Cook) maximum opportunities for the chorus.

At the dress rehearsal I saw, the chorus sang and danced with well-drilled pizzazz: particularly memorable were the lovelies, clad in sparkling gold, who sprang out of the filing cabinets in the accountants’ office, and the tap-dancing mass of old crones, each of them tapped for money by Bialystock.

One of the best scenes has Bialystock and accountant Bloom going round to woo Roger de Bris at his all-pink residence.

Ushered in by Roger’s assistant (Dave Crewe, as camp as they come), the Great Man eventually makes a grand entrance, clad in a sequined frock.

Guy Brigg’s Roger looked vaguely embarrassed at this point, and indeed seemed rather understated throughout. But things may well change when he’s playing to an audience. Entirely understanding that Mel Brooks doesn’t do good taste is Tim Younger’s Hitler-loving author, Franz Liebkind.

Investing a touch of Jewish melancholy into his singing, and superb comic timing into his acting is James Studds as the slippery-as-an-eel Bialystock. This is a top-class performance. It’s difficult to believe that Studds isn’t a professional actor.

Meanwhile, Andrew Stott provides an excellent foil as the hapless accountant.

With a sparky band in the pit (musical director Chris Payne), and the added challenge of using the massive original sets, all praise to Oxford Operatic for giving local audiences a great opportunity to see this show.

lThe Producers is at the New Theatre, Oxford, until Saturday. Tickets: newtheatreoxford.org.uk or 0844 8471588