So, has anyone seen it?
For those who’ve never heard of it - no, I am not kidding. It’s a real show, had its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe last year and is currently running at the National Theatre in London, shortly to go on tour.
Its basic idea is very simple - have a typical episode of the Jerry Springer show, only with all the characters singing. There are obviously no beeps to censor the bad language, and it doesn’t hold back - the main chorus is “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fucking fucking fuuuuuck?”*
The featured guests are a guy and his fiancée, the “chick with a dick”** he’s been seeing on the side, a coprophiliac, a woman who wants to become a stripper, her husband and mother, and of course the heckling audience, who linger at the sides of the stage and sing “Junkie! Crackwhore! Bitch!” at intervals.
The first act finishes with a bizarre incident involving the Ku Klux Klan, and during the interval, I was giggling away, because despite the fact it was rude, loud and obnoxious, it was genuinely funny, IMHO. However, I went as part of a school field trip, and out of our group of fifty (including teachers) eight people walked out and refused to see the second act because they were so offended. One girl was even reduced to tears. I found it slightly inexplicable because we were a group of teenagers, who do swear, who do use disgusting innuendo and bathroom invective on a regular basis, but I’ll admit I probably didn’t know those who were offended well enough to make a judgement.
This is beginning to sound like it should be in GD. Anyway. The second act wasn’t as funny, smacking of scraping-the-barrel and what-do-we-do-now, and it was more offensive whilst being less funny, bringing in religion, which I’ve never thought is a good idea.
However, YMMV. Anyone else seen it? Anyone one else want to see it?
*Apologies to the mods for that.
**That too.