The musical smash via trailer park trash!
From its phenomenal success in London and New York, Jerry Springer: The Opera is finally coming to Australia. The smash-hit, multi-award-winning production will premiere in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in April.
Based on the self-flagellatory version of Jerry’s own lurid talk show, Jerry Springer: The Opera is a fascinating mix of the highest form of art and the lowest form of pop culture – opera and daytime television.
In turns hilarious and heart-breaking, this raunchy, high-energy, all-singing, all-dancing production follows Jerry Springer to the afterlife and beyond. Reviled by Christian fundamentalists for allegedly containing 8,000 expletives (there are only 149) and hailed by Christian Voice as blasphemous, Jerry Springer presents characters desperate to have their own ‘Jerry Springer’ moment.
Along with an eight piece band, 21 actors play the cast of low-life’s and audience members who reveal their secrets, cuss each other and fight as their embarrassments come to life on TV.
I used to be a lap-dancing pre-operative transsexual…
Featuring nappy fetishists, dancing Klansmen and a Jesus who admits he is "just a little bit gay", the show poses a moral philosophical debate about the culture in which we live. In an age of Big Brother, where television offers both the ultimate validation of our existence and a public confessional for doing so, Jerry Springer’s ‘take no prisoners’ humour mocks our cultural institutions and mores.
You so tragic, you so sad, he’s not your brother, he's your dad…
With music by Richard Thomas and book and lyrics by Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas, the show created history by winning all four Best Musical Awards (Olivier, Evening Standard, Critic’s Circle and What’s On Stage) and three further Olivier Awards.
This comic opera has acquired cult status. As Richard Thomas said of the TV show, “It’s got tragedy, it’s got violence, there are people screaming at each other and you can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s perfect for opera.”
Filled with outrageous language (the F word is in full bloom), this profane, cheeky musical has a sung-through score that ranges from pop and classical to contemporary opera. With a duet and rousing finale performed by Satan and Jesus in the grand Broadway tradition, it will make you click your heels and laugh all the way home – while mouthing the words you dare not say aloud!
…It ain't over till the fat lady says you're sleeping with your brother's sister's twin.
