From The Guardian - 5th December 2002

Hytner era opens with cult opera

New National Theatre chief signals radical intentions with Jerry Springer musical satire that took Edinburgh by storm
Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent

As a statement of intent, it could not be clearer. Just as soon as the last tuxedos are tucked away from Cole Porter's gentle musical Anything Goes, an altogether less housetrained beast is going to be unleashed on to the stage of the National Theatre next year.
Jerry Springer - The Opera, a cheeky, irreverent, and joyously filthy musical theatre satire on the TV chat show no one likes to admit to watching, will be Nicholas Hytner's first big production when his reign begins in April.

As a first choice it sends an unmistakable message that the years ahead are likely not only to be risky and exciting but revolutionary in a way that Sir Trevor Nunn's were not.

Hytner had to fight hard to drag the cult show, the hit of the Edinburgh Festival, out of the hands of a clutch of West End producers, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh. It is also a triumph for the Battersea Arts Centre in south London, one of the hottest cradles of theatrical talent. The show started there from fewer than 10 minutes of material on one of its famous "scratch nights". Over the past 18 months, its composer Richard Thomas and co-writer comedian Stewart Lee have developed and tinkered with it in front of live audiences.

Yesterday BAC's director, Tom Morris, said a new era was dawning at the National. "It's just amazing. The idea of the National Theatre audience chanting "Jerry! Jerry!" as Edinburgh ones did is the sort of thing you talk about late at night when you are very, very drunk.

"It's quite flabbergasting what Nick Hytner is doing. One of the things said about the National in the past was that it was a bit isolated. There was this idea that the best artists would just seep in if it sat back and waited.

"It's one thing to say I'm going to look outside the building, another to do so. Hytner has been out looking around lots of fringey places, from ourselves to the Arcola in Dalston, which is just fantastic. For him to have the courage to go with one of his finds is just, well, amazing. And, believe me, we have plenty more at BAC where that came from."

Although Hytner will not unveil his detailed vision until next month, the smoke signals coming out of the South Bank bunker are that he is thinking radical thoughts. Much of the change being talked of actually began in the twilight years of the Nunn regime, with the creation of The Loft space in the Lyttelton for edgy new work.

The sea of grey heads stereotype that has come to characterise the National's audiences is clearly about to change.

Jerry Springer will also be the first opera staged there, not that Covent Garden or the English National Opera have often been graced with tunes like "My boyfriend doesn't know I'm a man".

Hytner's choice of a musical as his first big signature production is also being seen as a mark of solidarity with Nunn, who has been roasted for his fondness for staging big Broadway musicals that quickly transfer to the West End.

Yesterday Hytner would not be drawn on his plans. "I've followed the development of Jerry Springer - The Opera since I saw it in a workshop production 18 months ago at Battersea Arts Centre. It's exactly the kind of work the National should be doing: bold, scabrous, funny, and beautiful. I'm delighted to be working with Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee on their ground-breaking new opera."

Thomas and Lee are still working on sections of the show, which was given a concert performance at Edinburgh. Julian Crouch, who designed Shockheaded Peter, another fringe theatre gem that built up a cult following, has also been brought on board.

· Adrian Noble will direct Ralph Fiennes in Ibsen's Brand in his last play for the Royal Shakespeare Company before he steps down as artistic director. It will then transfer for a limited run to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London.

The spring season at Stratford also has The Taming of the Shrew paired with John Fletcher's rarely-performed sequel, The Tamer Tamed. Bill Alexander returns to direct Titus Andronicus. As You Like It, Cymbeline, Measure For Measure and Richard III complete the line up.

It's one of those dream concepts that catches everyone's imagination. Jerry Springer and opera: that's funny right? And extra buzz about this opera-comedy clash has been generated because of the way it's been put together by Stewart Lee, stand-up turned director, and Richard Thomas, whose CV includes an opera called Tourette's Diva.
They have slowly built this tribute to telly's king of dysfunctional relationships from tentative concert performances to try-out first act, all the time getting audience feedback and pointers about which way to head next. 'It's evolved in a weird, Labour Party-style public partnership with its financial supporters,' laughs Lee.
So although its official debut is not until now in Edinburgh, it has already attracted attention on a global scale. Its try-out in February at the Battersea Arts Centre drew audiences from as far afield as New York as well as promoters including Cameron Mackintosh, Andrew Lloyd Webber and National Theatre director Nick Hytner. There and then, Lee and Thomas were given offers of a West End run.
Luckily for us they resisted. This is Lee's 15th consecutive year on the Fringe and Thomas is not far behind with 11 visits. The festival is their artistic home and they wanted to give the show one last tweak for Edinburgh, cutting 40 minutes of good but not quite perfect material before what seems like the inevitable commercial transfer. 'I wanted to do it right, to really finish it off,' says Thomas, a self-taught composer. 'And Edinburgh's a great place to do it. It's the greatest festival on earth.'
Lee and Thomas are two men who know they're on a roll. Sitting opposite me in a quiet corner above their Clapham rehearsal room, they babble away in a high-speed barrage of enthusiasm, the one barely giving room for the other to speak. 'I thought we'd get a real backlash from the opera crowd,' says Thomas. 'That it would be seen as too lowbrow or undignified. But in fact, they really liked it.'

Lee chips in: 'I don't know anything about opera, so I just treated it like a comedy script that needed editing. But then when the opera people were coming in and going: "This is the funniest thing I've ever seen," I went and saw some opera and I thought, well, it probably is. If you've only ever seen West End musicals or opera, this is probably astonishing. It's written by people who have worked in comedy and know what is really funny, instead of what someone wrongly imagines as funny.'
Set in the dying days of The Jerry Springer Show, the first act features three sets of guests with guilty secrets. Interspersed are solos in which they reveal their real secrets (the man who says he likes to wear diapers really likes shitting his pants). Act two is set inside the mind of Jerry Springer as he descends into hell. The two men have used the conventions of the TV programme to inform the opera. 'In Jerry Springer,' says Lee, 'he says: "What's your problem then?" and you're straight into where you want to be. The programme has really harsh edits. That means you dispense with intros and outros or having to have things that are in the same key thrown together.'
The idea first came to Thomas as he watched The Jerry Springer Show and saw lots of fat people shouting at each other incoherently: just like in opera. 'Opera is an extreme form,' he says. 'So if you're going to write an opera, you may as well use an extreme subject. If the guests are screaming at each other - 'You pervert, you sicko, you motherfucker" - the music can go against that: the subtext can come through.'
The two had a meeting with Springer himself ('I think of him as Saint Mephistopheles,' says Thomas), who gave his tacit agreement to the project and may even turn up in person when he appears at the Edinburgh Television Festival. Are there any legal complications I ask? 'Er...' says Thomas, uncharacteristically panicked. 'I can't really say.'
So why does he think it's taking off in such a big way? 'It genuinely is pretty funny,' he says. 'It's tight. It's not boring. All the things you associate with opera, it isn't. But musically, we've got fantastic singers who have to be really good because it's complex stuff. I get a kick from the fact that people might be laughing over some serious, complex music.'