FEST - 7 August 2002

who do you think you aria?

*****
jerry springer: the opera- assembly rooms
until aug 26 (not 13,20). 14.35 - £14.50 (£12.50)

Two things spring immediately to mind when confronted with the title to this show. It's an opera?
Surely it's just a single joke tenuously stretched over two hours?

Don't be dissuaded. It may have the structure of a conventional opera, and sure, it seems a bit of a one-trick pony at first. However the novelty value alone is enough to carry the show along enthusiastically to the end of the first half.

The show takes the form of one of Jerry's less subdued episodes. Chicks-with-dicks go head to head against slut junkies. Mullet-headed trailer trash beat on their wives in a barrage of foul-mouthed one-liners: "When you're dead and buried in the grass, I'll dig you up and fuck you up the ass," sung with uninhibited gusto by professionals. It then shifts into a more fantastical setting, building to an outrageous Miltonic climax in parts both offensive and hysterical.

It'd be false not to say it's only funny because people sing rude words, but fuck it, it works. The production's faultless, the performances are fantastic and there are enough laughs to go round, thanks to the better half of Lee and Herring having a hand in the script. If this isn't sold out every night, they might as well burn the Assembly Rooms to the ground.
Thrills: Talk to the hand, cos the face ain't listening.
Spills: Oh my God, I was wrong. It was Earth all along...

James Lyon

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Director Stewart Lee explains the joys of Springer, and what happens when the voice of a soprano meets the language of a Soprano...

"We were interested in ethics and the human condition, about reconciliation and love. These are the things that people can relate to. Even if you can't see anything of yourself in a man who likes to dress up as a baby and shit his pants, you can empathise which his despair and frustration. I certainly do. I cry sometimes, when I watch it, actually. It's quite overwhelming.

"And yes, there's a lot of swearing, but after the first 15 minutes you just become immune to it. There's a song near the beginning called "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fucking fucking fuck," which isn't shocking at all, but it gets a big laugh. It's just stupid swearing. There's another bit when a woman sings "Cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt!" and the fact that she is doing so over beautiful harmonies and melodies means that a totally different message is conveyed.

Helen Pidd