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Jerry Springer: The OperaSpringer watches us watching him

By Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer Posted on Sunday, August 25th, 2002

‘Everyone is always telling me I am going to hell. Now I’ve seen it,’ was the verdict of popular television’s biggest star, Jerry Springer, as he confronted an uncomfortable vision of his own fate on an Edinburgh stage yesterday. ‘Not many people get to see their future,’ he added.

Springer made an unannounced visit to the hit show of the Fringe Festival, Jerry Springer: The Opera, and pronounced it ‘wonderful’, even though lawyers for his successful US chat show are likely to try to stop it being produced elsewhere.

The musical, with a foul-mouthed libretto that features an aria sung by a dwarf lesbian with a nappy fetish, a black baby Jesus and the Devil, was ‘great’ and ‘many-layered’, Springer said, although it features an unflattering portrayal of him.

‘I hope the show comes to America,’ he told The Observer. ‘I only wish I’d thought of it first. I don’t object to anything in it. The whole show is tongue-in-cheek, so what is the problem?’

He had fun with the sell-out audience at the Assembly Rooms, however, most of whom were astonished to see the real Jerry Springer sitting beside them watching a show that satirised his controversial TV programme.

He was greeted with a round of applause and stood up in the interval to shout out a playful ‘it’s not true’ after a particularly sordid allegation about his personal life. The opera, directed and written by the comedian Stewart Lee, one half of the television duo Lee and Herring, with music by Richard Thomas, has prompted the excited attentions of producers from New York and London, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh. A German producer was in the audience and hoped to buy up the show.

But Springer’s television network lawyers are unlikely to let such a telling parody of his programme continue. Copyright is believed to be an issue. Springer, who is in the city to speak at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival today, was not the only star to enjoy the show. Tracey Ullman, whose husband is one of the producers, praised the singers, while Esther Rantzen said it was ‘brilliant’.

‘It was beautifully sung and it obviously enhanced it to see it done in the presence of the master.’

Springer’s relaxed attitude is remarkable, given that it makes staggering shifts from reality. In the second half, he gets shot and goes to hell and solves the question of what is good and evil.

Lee has said: ‘He becomes the liberal fantasy of what you want an American chat-show host to be.’

Written by Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer on 25th August 2002. Filed Under: Jerry Springer: The Opera, Reviews
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