If you liked “My Favorite Year,” the thinly veiled Mel Brooks-produced look at Sid Caesar’s early 1950s TV writers’ room, you may be curious to see “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” which is Neil Simon’s take on the same topic. (Brooks and Simon shared the room with Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen, among others.)
Not only does the Neil Simon version deal with essentially the same subject matter as "My Favorite Year," it was directed by Richard Benjamin, who directed “My Favorite Year,” and stars Mark-Linn Baker, who starred in “My Favorite Year.”
It bows Saturday night at 8 p.m. on Showtime.
The Hollywood Reporter says:
The telefilm brings together an enormously talented cast, including two who reprise their role from the 1993 Broadway production. The sum of their efforts is a gently amusing, heartfelt tribute to a bygone era.
Variety says:
As well-cast a cable production as one could hope for, Showtime's version of Neil Simon's play "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" proves a sparkling ensemble can make even mediocre material entertaining. Director Richard Benjamin and Simon, who did the adaptation, take one of the writer's least satisfying works and make it worse, transforming a pretty plotless piece into a barely coherent one. And yet, Nathan Lane and a superb group of supporting players mine this stuff expertly, making each part worth far more than the sum of the whole.
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