A TV presentation of the successful London stage show. A fully operatic production very loosely based on the 'Jerry Springer' TV show.A TV presentation of the successful London stage show. A fully operatic production very loosely based on the 'Jerry Springer' TV show.A TV presentation of the successful London stage show. A fully operatic production very loosely based on the 'Jerry Springer' TV show.
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Did you know
- TriviaThe BBC received over 50,000 complaints about the screening of this show (most of them before it aired), making it the most complained about TV broadcast in British television history.
- ConnectionsFeatured in X-Rated: The TV They Tried to Ban (2005)
Featured review
Very little to say other than swearing; it is "different" but it has none of the value, interest, intelligence or even humour that the BBC defenders claimed it did
Jerry Springer's chat show is the place to come to air your problems if you are a deviant, freak or just plain trash. Jerry will try and solve your issues while his bouncers break up any fights. On just another day in his series, Jerry's guests include a man who wants to be a baby, a man having an affair with a woman and a man, a fat woman who wants to be a lapdancer and so on. However, an argument with his ambitious warm-up man sees Jerry shot dead and finding himself in Hell. With a choice of helping Satan or facing a future of being "f****d up the *ss with barbed wire", Jerry chooses to help and finds himself presenting a show in which Satan, Mary, Adam and Eve all seek an apology from a slightly gay Jesus.
Recently in Birmingham several thousand members of the Sheik community protested outside the Rep Theatre about the play Behzti where a rape occurs within a meeting room within a Sheik temple they claimed this was offensive to their faith. Protest turned into violence and the Rep made a hasty decision to withdraw the play long before the end of its run. I mention this because I believe it was this event that made the Christian groups realise that they should try and get on this PC-wave of appeasement as well. However, being "hideously white" and middle class, their protests were ignored (despite breaking all records) and the BBC screened Jerry Springer: The Opera claiming its artistic merit made it worth the "slight offence". Conveniently the Director for BBC2, when asked if he would screen the opera if it was Mohammad dressed in a nappy saying he was gay, he replied that that opera would have no artistic merit (Radio 5 7th January 2005). Just for the record, I believe the BBC was right to show it but the problem is that society seems to be frightened to say boo to an ethnic minority group while white people are fair game.
Anyway, with loads of warnings beforehand, the BBC showed the project on the grounds that it was an important piece of work with artistic merit. Of course, this is nonsense that they need to say to justify upsetting people and getting free publicity. I could agree with them on the basis of what the show could have done it had the potential to really look at the ethics of the trash culture and the media's role in revelling in it. Sadly the majority of the show revels in the same thing; drawing easy laughs from the juxtaposition of the music with the language & subject matter the only real applause from the audience (apart from the start and end) came from the chorus singing the C word about 15 times in succession. This is a major problem with the show because it is very much an one-joke affair and after the first 20 minutes of Springer excess, language and characters all singing swear words it just stops being amusing I say amusing because, aside from the odd titter, neither I nor the audience really found it that good. After the novelty wears off, and the thoughtful side fails to materialise then all that is really left is the show revelling in attempts to shock the end result pleasing those looking for "something different" and offending those who will be offended. Not really fitting into either camp in that regard I just found myself bored.
The lyrics are not that funny and it shows that Lee & Herring cannot move past their student humour even when trying to do opera. Not that the whole thing is an opera because it does wander into other types of music at times. The cast are mixed as well. The chorus line may mostly be to blame to The Sun's estimate of 8000 swear words but mainly they are responsible for overacting and just playing to the easy laugh achieved by singing the F and C words in falsetto. Soul is a pretty good Jerry Springer and his performance is the only one that really hints that the material could have been much more thoughtful and interesting. Craig plays on his appearance in nappies more than he does on anything else while the rest of the cast revel in the trash they play and the chance to swear in opera! They are all upstaged by Delacey's Satan; he seems to have gotten the tone just right and he never takes the material seriously once, playing his characters with a real wit that I felt worked.
Overall, after all the fighting and hype and so on the show still must be judged on its own merits and it is all pretty much an average affair that relies more on being "different" to please than it does on the material or ideas that could have been brought out. It is worth seeing just because it is "different" but it has very little to say (other than lots of swear words) and is nowhere near as clever, important or even entertaining as the BBC would have us believe. Watch if you want that is the beauty of a free society, but just don't expect it to be worth the bother.
Recently in Birmingham several thousand members of the Sheik community protested outside the Rep Theatre about the play Behzti where a rape occurs within a meeting room within a Sheik temple they claimed this was offensive to their faith. Protest turned into violence and the Rep made a hasty decision to withdraw the play long before the end of its run. I mention this because I believe it was this event that made the Christian groups realise that they should try and get on this PC-wave of appeasement as well. However, being "hideously white" and middle class, their protests were ignored (despite breaking all records) and the BBC screened Jerry Springer: The Opera claiming its artistic merit made it worth the "slight offence". Conveniently the Director for BBC2, when asked if he would screen the opera if it was Mohammad dressed in a nappy saying he was gay, he replied that that opera would have no artistic merit (Radio 5 7th January 2005). Just for the record, I believe the BBC was right to show it but the problem is that society seems to be frightened to say boo to an ethnic minority group while white people are fair game.
Anyway, with loads of warnings beforehand, the BBC showed the project on the grounds that it was an important piece of work with artistic merit. Of course, this is nonsense that they need to say to justify upsetting people and getting free publicity. I could agree with them on the basis of what the show could have done it had the potential to really look at the ethics of the trash culture and the media's role in revelling in it. Sadly the majority of the show revels in the same thing; drawing easy laughs from the juxtaposition of the music with the language & subject matter the only real applause from the audience (apart from the start and end) came from the chorus singing the C word about 15 times in succession. This is a major problem with the show because it is very much an one-joke affair and after the first 20 minutes of Springer excess, language and characters all singing swear words it just stops being amusing I say amusing because, aside from the odd titter, neither I nor the audience really found it that good. After the novelty wears off, and the thoughtful side fails to materialise then all that is really left is the show revelling in attempts to shock the end result pleasing those looking for "something different" and offending those who will be offended. Not really fitting into either camp in that regard I just found myself bored.
The lyrics are not that funny and it shows that Lee & Herring cannot move past their student humour even when trying to do opera. Not that the whole thing is an opera because it does wander into other types of music at times. The cast are mixed as well. The chorus line may mostly be to blame to The Sun's estimate of 8000 swear words but mainly they are responsible for overacting and just playing to the easy laugh achieved by singing the F and C words in falsetto. Soul is a pretty good Jerry Springer and his performance is the only one that really hints that the material could have been much more thoughtful and interesting. Craig plays on his appearance in nappies more than he does on anything else while the rest of the cast revel in the trash they play and the chance to swear in opera! They are all upstaged by Delacey's Satan; he seems to have gotten the tone just right and he never takes the material seriously once, playing his characters with a real wit that I felt worked.
Overall, after all the fighting and hype and so on the show still must be judged on its own merits and it is all pretty much an average affair that relies more on being "different" to please than it does on the material or ideas that could have been brought out. It is worth seeing just because it is "different" but it has very little to say (other than lots of swear words) and is nowhere near as clever, important or even entertaining as the BBC would have us believe. Watch if you want that is the beauty of a free society, but just don't expect it to be worth the bother.
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- bob the moo
- Jan 26, 2005
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- £200,000 (estimated)
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Top Gap
By what name was Jerry Springer: The Opera (2005) officially released in Canada in English?
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