After the Birmingham Rep furore before Christmas, this just seems like fuel on the fire of a slightly different sort. I've got to wonder - how many people have called Michael Grade to encourage him to show this on BBC2 and to thank him for showing a cutting edge and nationally renowned piece of musical theatre?
http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=5&id=396
3 comments:
WOW! That's a lot to take in. I wonder if we'll ever get a look at that in the states?
shalom,
Jonathon/St.Phransus
My understanding was that it has been on Broadway but I'm not sure... you can always check out the site for yourselves: www.jerryspringertheopera.com
OK, so I saw it and was stunned, in every possible sense of the word. It did make me think – about the hideous mess that as humans make for ourselves, about the message being the medium (and vice versa), and about, as Jerry himself put it in the pre-show documentary, the show not really advertising great lifestyle choices for anyone to go out and live like that, but the influence of the media nonetheless...
If these people who are protesting think that they represent a universal faith that I share with them, then I’m personally not sure that they do. It made me wonder if they would/ do protest about other things that I might not agree with their dislike of – Harry Potter, Philip Pullman’s books, Chris Morris’ Brasseye TV show, Jake and Dinos Chapman’s art, to name but a few.
It made me also wonder where this might eventually lead us if we are so protective about people not having the sense to switch off their TV when they might be offended. Especially when almost all of the people that I’ve heard interviewed have admitted they have NOT seen the material. To take a more trivial example, if I hate the sight of blood, then I’m hardly likely to tune in to Casualty (which can be gruesome, even pre-watershed), but crucially, it doesn’t stop me thinking that the BBC has a right to show it, and others to watch it. There were TWO verbal and written warnings about the content and its possible effect on people of a sensitive nature that were broadcast in advance of the show being aired.
And in the wake of Birmingham Rep’s experiences with Behzti, we could end up with all sorts of things not being considered “safe or suitable” for us to watch be that on stage or on TV. In fact, I heard one of the protestors say that it was fine when it was in the theatre because it was only available to those who actively wanted to go (he might as well as have said “those liberals who could afford it”). Try telling that to Birmingham Rep.
All of these arguments on both sides are a slippery slope if taken to extremes (eg any consenting adult should be allowed to watch anything at all on national TV, or all stuff should be run by some sort of lowest cultural common denominator committee), but then we have to think that news editors have to take decisions every day about what we need to see to wake us up from our cosy lives, and what would be a step too far.
And anyway, it’s satire after all. Definition: a literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. Precisely. Um, and I also sort of think (note the hesitancy here before you all jump on me) that if our God is much bigger than a cruelly funny, spoof chat show presented as high art.
I also loved the fact that Stewart Lee in the pre-show documentary was blatantly wearing a T-shirt that said “Sponsored by the Daily Mail”!! He's such a funny geezer.
Anyone else see it?
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