When Stewart Lee co-wrote Jerry Springer: The Opera, he wasn’t prepared for the fury that followed. As the show goes on tour he tells our correspondent that he’s had enough

The drab backstage corridors of the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, can rarely have looked so colourful. Last-minute rehearsals are in progress for Jerry Springer: The Opera, the controversial show by Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee, which begins its 21-theatre tour here, despite the vociferous protests of right-wing Christian groups. Actors trickle past, a curious procession of misfits, trailer trash and biblical characters. There, in teased blonde wig, goes Chick with a Dick; Satan trots by in search of a sandwich. Upstairs in the canteen most of them, still semi-costumed as reality TV refugees, are gossiping about Celebrity Big Brother. It’s a surreal scene.

When Lee, who directs the show, appears, he looks decidedly harassed. Despite winning critical plaudits, Jerry Springer has, in some respects, become his cross to bear. Its broadcast on the BBC in January last year drew violent opprobrium from its detractors, who even issued death threats to senior BBC executives. The pressure of dealing with such intense and unreasoning ill will has taken its toll on Lee; Christian Voice and the BNP both plan to picket the tour.

Lee, a highly regarded stand-up comedian, speaks with measured, deadpan precision. Behind his baby-smooth face and bright blue eyes is a formidable intellect — his eloquence never falters, even when his anger and disillusionment are most evident. “I’ve spent the last year writing about the opera and defending its position, and when I looked at it again in rehearsals, I thought: ‘Yeah, this is really good. But will we get audiences? The advance word that Christian Voice has stirred up has been so negative that its supporters feel obliged to overdefend it, to the point where it sounds so highbrow and worthy that that’s almost as off-putting as it being described as a blasphemous tirade of filth.”

It is, of course, neither; nor, says Lee, is it simply a critique of reality television. There’s enormous compassion, as well as scatological shock and humour, in its parade of human frailty, and genuine thoughtfulness in the sequences in which its titular talk-show host is shot in a studio brawl and transported from purgatory to broker peace between Heaven and Hell. “It’s about ethics and how we deal with and judge one another,” Lee says. “Reality television and the Bible myth are both good ways of looking at that, because they’re broadly familiar — in fact, as we become a more secular society, arguably reality TV is more familiar to people than the Christian mythology that the culture of this country’s based on. It’s an interesting dichotomy.”

What’s more, the show’s gross-out humour is essential. “A person talking about their obsession with wanting to poo in their own pants or their desire to be a pole- dancer — they’re big themes in their own way. The show takes things that seem impossibly foul about human existence and uses music and drama to dignify ordinary people. Then, in the second half, it takes mythological characters who are supposed to be better than us — Adam and Eve, Mary and Jesus — and shows that the reason these stories work is because there’s humanity in them.

“So it is dramatically necessary to run all this filth through it. Though there isn’t as much filth as everyone said. There are supposed to be 8,000 swear words, but we’ve only been able to find 174. Still,” he concludes wryly, “that does give you something to aim for.”

He’s convinced that the opera will endure. “It might get stamped on now, and maybe it’s not viable. But in a generation’s time it will definitely be being staged. In two or three generations’ time, it might even end up on a syllabus. Admittedly, not at one of Tony Blair’s faith schools but, then again, you never know. Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell were both picketed by the religious right 30, 35 years ago, and now they look like recruiting tools. And The Life of Brian was banned in Solihull, where I grew up, by the local council, but to me it was a thoughtful, funny look at the way in which even a positive message can be distorted.

“I mean, Jesus Christ appears in it as quite a positive character. In Jerry Springer he appears as a kind of excitable child who says he might be a bit gay. We may have a long journey before that is as acceptable as Godspell. But it is conceivable.”

The attacks on Jerry Springer drove Lee, last year, to create a courageous new stand-up show. “I was so sick of people trying to set in stone what an idea was, what the meaning of a word was, insisting that there were things that couldn’t be said. Because it’s always about context, intent and tone. So I tried to take the worst possible thing I could think of and see if I could make it beautiful.”

What he came up with is startling. “I had this idea of vomiting and urinating into the mouth and anus of Christ. And I tried to see, is there a context for that? Can you take something utterly unacceptable and puerile and pointless, and change its meaning with performance and the story around it? Could you make it moving, give it a spiritual dimension?”

It’s a measure of Lee’s achievement that, when the show was performed in Edinburgh last year, most critics agreed that he had succeeded in doing just that. But in the process he forced himself to relive the worst experiences of the previous months — and it’s not something he’s ever willing to put himself through again. Nor, he says, will he ever again work on a high- profile piece such as Jerry Springer: “I’m proud of it, but in terms of the stress it’s just not worth it.”

Instead, Lee — who says he’s growing more benign with age — fancies what sounds like a fairly radical change of direction. “I’d like to do something for children. No, really! I’ve been doing stand-up for children and it’s great fun. They ask the best questions.

“I did this story for some five-year-olds about not eating my greens, even though my mum told me to, and getting smaller and smaller and smaller, until I was like an ant. And this kid put her hand up, and she went: ‘If you got really small from not eating your greens, why are you big again now?’ And I went: ‘Eeeerm, I don’t know!’ I hadn’t thought it through. And that’s much better than someone from Christian Voice asking you whether you think gays are going to Hell. That’s beautiful.”

Crisis out of a drama

The Plough and the Stars In 1926, audiences at the the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, objected to Sean O’Casey’s anti-heroic version of the 1916 uprising.

Saved Edward Bond’s 1965 vision of South London thuggery at the Royal Court caused outrage with its baby-stoning scene. Sarah Kane, whose Blasted would cause similar reactions 30 years later, said the scene showed her that “there isn’t anything you can’t represent on stage”.

Perdition Protests in London stopped Jim Allen’s 1989 play, which accused Zionist leaders of Hungary’s Jewish community of colluding with the Nazis in concealing that Jews were being sent to extermination camps.

Oleanna David Mamet’s 1992 play, about a university professor and a student who accused him of sexual harassment, had couples in America coming out of the theatre yelling at each other, so strongly divided was opinion.

Bezhti Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s drama, set in a temple, so enraged the Sikh community in Birmingham last year that the play was withdrawn. The playwright received death threats and went into hiding.

Jerry Springer: The Opera is at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth (01752 267222), until Sat, then tours. For full details, visit www.jerryspringertheopera.com