Springer Posts Early Notices at Cambridge, 19 FebDate: 12 January 2005
Just four days after its TV broadcast caused a national uproar, with the most number of complaints ever received by the BBC (See News, 5 Jan 2005), the ever-controversial Jerry Springer - The Opera has posted closing notices at London’s Cambridge Theatre. It had been booking up until October 2005 but will now finish, after 15 months in the West End, on 19 February.
The show’s closure was first mooted this past October, when producers at Avalon said that the costs of a libel action against the Daily Mail newspaper, since quietly settled, had prevented them from spending any money on promotion, to the perilous detriment of the box office (See News, 29 Oct 2005). At the time, Avalon’s Jon Thoday told Whatsonstage.com: “Big West End musicals have to spend between £1.5 and £2 million a year on marketing. We’ve had to reduce ours to almost nothing.”
BBC Two’s unedited Saturday night broadcast of the expletive-laden and, according to Christian protestors who wanted the programme cancelled, ‘blasphemous’ musical generated acres of media attention and attracted a television audience of 2.4 million (a record TV viewing figure for a musical or opera), but was apparently not enough to stem the tide at the theatre box office.
A cult hit in concert form at Battersea Arts Centre and the Edinburgh Fringe, the full-fledged version of Jerry Springer - The Opera had its world premiere on 29 April 2003 at the National Theatre, where it had an extended, sell-out season running in repertory for five months at the NT Lyttelton. It transferred to the West End on 10 November 2003 (previews from 14 October), when the real-life Jerry Springer flew into town to attend the opening night.
Promising "triumph, tragedy and trailer trash as high art meets low", as the title suggests, Jerry Springer - The Opera is based on America's most lurid talk show host who has broadcast programmes such as "Pregnant by a Transsexual", "Here Come the Hookers" and "I Refuse to Wear Clothes". In the musical, Springer suffers the worst day of his career, during which he's taken from his studio to both heaven and hell, confronting some of his bizarre guests, including a Chick with a Dick and a diaper-wearing baritone, along the way.
Last year, the show - written by Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee, who also directs – won four Best Musical prizes at the Olivier, Critics’ Circle, Evening Standard and Whatsonstage.com’s own Theatregoers’ Choice Awards. The 36-strong cast is currently led by Starsky and Hutch’s David Soul in the title role.
Jerry Springer - The Opera is due to embark on a UK nationwide tour starting in Manchester in October 2005. No further productions have yet been announced for the Cambridge Theatre.
- by Terri Paddock
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