The Stage

Thoday challenge - ignore protests and book Springer

Published Wednesday 16 March 2005 at 10:25 by Jeremy Austin

Producer of Jerry Springer - the Opera John Thoday has issued a challenge to regional theatres to back and book the controversial show despite the threat of legal action from evangelical group Christian Voice.

Already, the second biggest regional theatre chain Ambassador Theatre Group has pledged its backing, while larger rival Clear Channel Entertainment has offered qualified support. Although the tour has had to be rescheduled after a number of venues pulled out - some citing pressure from the Christian organisation - Thoday said it will go ahead, opening in Plymouth in January, if all those now committed continued to be so.

However, theatres are facing intense pressure from the militant fringe organisation and in some cases from the concerns generated within local authorities. Its national director Stephen Green has written a letter to 250 regional venues warning them that if they present the show, they will face protests from similar-minded people and that he will bring court action against them on blasphemy grounds.

Said Thoday: “This has been a very difficult thing for everybody but we are absolutely determined to make it happen. Of the venues that are genuinely behind us, we have 25 who 100% want it to happen. Whether they had issues with their councils or not, they are going to do it. If we can reschedule so we don’t have gaps in the tour, we will open in January in Plymouth and run for 27 weeks.

“We are doing everything we can to make it happen. [Springer authors] Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas want it to happen and we thank the theatres that are being supportive. This is a brilliantly funny show and we cannot let these people stop something so good. Jerry Springer has won more awards than any other new musical written by British writers. That small group of reactionary individuals cannot stop something being presented.”

CCE has said in a statement that the show is currently pencilled in at several of its venues as part of a much larger tour and that “whether it goes ahead is a decision for the producers. This would be the same for any touring show which is not a Clear Channel production”.

Meanwhile ATG has offered a far more bullish response, issuing a statement that Avalon hopes will demonstrate to current and potential investors the show will go on.

Head of programming Rachel Tackley said: “It is our intention to programme Jerry Springer - the Opera in a number of ATG’s regional venues for 2006. It has been a huge West End success and we look forward to bringing this multi award-winning production to a wider audience in the UK.”

Christian Voice organised the picket at the BBC during the transmission of the show earlier this year, although Green denies claims that his supporters sent threatening letters or emails to Corporation staff. They then turned their attention to the West End production, which had already announced it was coming to the end of its run at the Cambridge. It had until then been largely ignored by Christian activists, despite runs at BAC, Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the National Theatre.

Green, speaking exclusively to The Stage, insisted he had the financial acumen to bring the threatened prosecutions.

“What this will come down to in the end is whether the jury will convict them. Thank God, that despite the best intentions of our wonderful civil libertarian, go-ahead government, we still have a jury system and it will be down to them whether they find it blasphemous,” he said.

He added that protests would be peaceful, unlike the violence that erupted in Birmingham when a militant faction of the Sikh community there reacted angrily to Birmingham Rep’s production of Behzti.

“You can’t deny that Behzti closed and so what they did was effective. But we look at things slightly differently. We are a Christian organisation. There has been a lot of hysteria in the papers but we were outside the Cambridge Theatre with praise and prayer and were talking to theatregoers about the love of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Adding that Christian Voice supporters will be encouraged to hold their peaceful protests before productions programmed prior to the Jerry Springer run as well as during the run itself, Green said: “We can give people a framework on how to maintain a prayer vigil outside any theatres.”