Monday, January 10, 2005
TV in London over the weekend: Jerry! Jerry!
Controversy over the weekend over the decision by BBC2 to screen Jerry Springer: The Opera. Religious groups burned their TV Licenses and tried to make dirty calls to the private phone lines of BBC Executives. The broadcast drew an audience of 1.7m viewers (which means even with all this controversy Match of the Day was more popular with more than double watching that).
The controversy was not about the content and the profanities (although the tabloids clocked up 8000 profanities - although they did this by counting individual chorus members), but by the depiction of key religious figures (Jesus, God etc) in the second act when Jerry goes to Hell and is asked to run a show for the Devil. Context is really everything so by saying that Jesus is played by a fat man in a diaper is really missing the point... Considering the show has been around for two years it seemed a little odd for the ruckus to emerge just because it was being aired on television anyway... Perhaps it was engineered, or perhaps easilly offended religious people don't get out much...
Anyway after seeing it on TV, it is tempting to go and see it live again, especially since if you present a bible to the box office at the theatre this week, you get £10 tickets... The show may be on its last legs in the West End having been there for over a year, but then there is always the DVD of the show to come out...
Controversy over the weekend over the decision by BBC2 to screen Jerry Springer: The Opera. Religious groups burned their TV Licenses and tried to make dirty calls to the private phone lines of BBC Executives. The broadcast drew an audience of 1.7m viewers (which means even with all this controversy Match of the Day was more popular with more than double watching that).
The controversy was not about the content and the profanities (although the tabloids clocked up 8000 profanities - although they did this by counting individual chorus members), but by the depiction of key religious figures (Jesus, God etc) in the second act when Jerry goes to Hell and is asked to run a show for the Devil. Context is really everything so by saying that Jesus is played by a fat man in a diaper is really missing the point... Considering the show has been around for two years it seemed a little odd for the ruckus to emerge just because it was being aired on television anyway... Perhaps it was engineered, or perhaps easilly offended religious people don't get out much...
Anyway after seeing it on TV, it is tempting to go and see it live again, especially since if you present a bible to the box office at the theatre this week, you get £10 tickets... The show may be on its last legs in the West End having been there for over a year, but then there is always the DVD of the show to come out...
