Jerry Springer the Opera review – ingenious return of the chatshow from hell

about 6 years in The guardian

Hope Mill theatre, ManchesterThe TV host, cast to hell for provoking salacious slanging matches, becomes newly pertinent in a tuneful restaging of Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas’s show
It’s interesting how the parameters of indignation shift. When Jerry Springer the Opera was staged at the National Theatre in 2003 – and even more so when it was broadcast on the BBC two years later – it caused controversy. Today, when major world leaders can make outrageous statements and be seemingly unscathed by the backlash, our threshold for shock and offence has been raised. Yet Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee’s show still feels surprisingly relevant. Continue reading...

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