New production company Northern Ricochet is the driving force behind plans for a major revival of Jerry Springer The Opera at Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre this summer.
Nearly 15 years after the controversial multi-award-winning musical debuted in the UK, the new production will play the Ancoats’ venue from 8 until 31 August 2019.
The production will be a homecoming of sorts for the three founders of Northern Ricochet, director James Baker, musical director Tom Chester and producer Bill Elms who first met at the Manchester venue in 2016 as part of the creative team on Parade.
Set up with ambitions to produce ‘quality theatre in the North, for the North and featuring Northern creatives, actors and voices’, Northern Ricochet’s debut production will be directed by Baker with Chester serving as musical director and Elms as co-producer.
Announcing the production, Baker said: “When Jerry Springer The Opera first hit stages in the UK, it created a mass protest. It was unapologetic, uncompromising, fresh and original – and fused a highbrow form with a lowbrow subject matter. This fusion was what first attracted me. After getting through the protestors, I sat down and watched the best two hours of entertaining yet profound theatre I’d seen in years. It started a revolution.
“Jerry was ground-breaking and placed a mirror up to the audience. A mirror of reflection and a possibility for us to learn something. The big question is, have we learned anything? Sadly not, and I’d argue we’re even more divided than before. Prejudice still remains within race, sexuality and equality. Just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I think we’ve just got better at pretending all is more harmonious. We’ve become even better actors than those in the Jerry show. Reality has become even more blurred.”
Written by Richard Thomas who also wrote the music and lyrics, Jerry Springer The Opera features a book and additional lyrics by Thomas and Stewart Lee. Inspired by one of the most distinctive and controversial TV personalities in US history, Jerry Springer The Opera previewed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2002 before moving to London for an initial six month run at the National Theatre.
An 18-month West End run followed at the Cambridge Theatre before the show hit the road for a UK tour in 2006 which included dates in Manchester.
Commenting on the show’s return to the city over a decade later, Baker added: “Jerry Springer today means something very different to a modern audience. We’ve advanced so fiercely into a new digital age, past the all-you-can-eat chat show buffet. But where we’ve ended up is far more frightening. It’s time to hold that mirror back up. We are bringing you a fresh version of Jerry. One that is again a provocation but also a reflection of our times. We aim to create a movement.”
Based on the ground-breaking US TV series, The Jerry Springer Show, which was first broadcast on television in 1991 and was on the air for 27 years, it tells the story of America’s favourite talk show host who suffers the worst day in his career when faced with some of the most challenging guests he’s ever met on set.
During its original run, the show made theatre history by receiving an unprecedented four awards for Best Musical at the Olivier Awards, the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, and The WhatsOnStage Awards.
The show was most recently seen Off-Broadway last year when it played a six-week run which proved so popular the run was extended for an extra three weeks.
Angela Thomas
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