Profane. Vulgar. Obscene. Blasphemous. Over the Top.

Tonight Rehana and I went to check out Jerry Springer ? The Opera. I?d heard rave reviews about it but I couldn?t see how Jerry Springer ? the Talkshow was going to translate on to stage. The format was interesting with a touch of a musical, comedy and an opera. Jerry was the only character who spoke ? everyone else sang either normally or operatically. Though smartly written this format sometimes made it hard to understand exactly what was trying to be said.

The first half was typical Jerry: A man cheats on his long-term girlfriend with two other girls, one who turns out to be a man; A man cheats on his girlfriend because he has a fetish for dressing in a diaper that only ?Baby Jane? will cater to; A woman reveals she wants to be a pole dancer; the KKK make an appearance; and Jerry gets shot. The second half sees us venture into Hell and a confrontation between Satan, Jesus and God.

I could go on to describe in detail how shocking this performance was but it?s the kind of show that you need to go and see for yourself and make a call. Will you sit back and enjoy it for what it is or will you be one of those who sit through the performance not knowing whether to laugh it off or leave with your sanity intact?

This musical never gets old. I must have seen about 4 different versions of this in my life so far and even seeing it for the fifth time ? I can still say I love it. Obviously Elvira felt exactly the same way, except the difference being that she had seen this particular version 2-3 times already (though with a different Joseph and/or Elvis each time. That?s right, in this new modernized version the Pharoah is Elvis. Very funny but sometimes it was hard to understand what he was singing). For a tenner I was definitely up for it.

I was hoping to catch Stephen Gateley, formerly of Boyzone, as Joseph but apparently his run had ended and instead we had Joseph played by Simon Gorton. Not too bad a performance, though Elvira says he is a slightly weaker singer than Stephen and his appendix scar was slightly distracting on an otherwise hot body. Ahem ? moving on. The narrator, Vivienne Carlyle, was brilliant and the kids in the choir (about 24-30 of them) were fabulous. My absolutely favourite moments were the sheep popping up on stage ? surprising yet effective.

I?m not sure how long the musical has been running now but the theatre was only half packed. That didn?t effect the energy of the crowd (or cast) at all though. There were catcalls all throughout the performance and everyone (meaning the audience!) wholeheartedly got into dancing and the clapping at the end when there was a 15-20 minute encore that replayed all the good songs. A fun musical whose songs had me singing all night.

Total steps taken: 11,347

I don’t know if I was particularly lucky or whether it was purely good timing but against all odds last night I found myself taking a seat on the opening night of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring one Christian Slater (previews had started two weeks earlier). Yes we were in the nose-bleed section but I wasn’t complaining too much as I could clearly see Christian (and isn’t this all that matters?). And see him I did – down to his little hot pants! Ahem … okay … um … back on track then. The play wasn’t too bad – quite engaging actually despite the rather gloomy subject. The only negative points of the evening (though I still giggle about it) was someone’s mobile phone going off (okay – I think we can accept that there is always going to be one or two morons in the audience who think that the world will stop turning if they switch off their mobile for 2 hours) and someone’s alarm clock going off. That’s right – an alarm clock!! (and to add insult to injury – it went off during a particularly poignant point of the play.) Uh – who brings an alarm clock to the theatre and why was it set to alarm at that time of night? I will never cease to wonder at the inanity of some people.

In case you were worried that Christian prevented me from taking enough steps that day … you can relax. Steps taken: 10,840.