h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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I seriously object to my license fee paying for 'Songs of Praise'. Do I think that such programs should be banned? No, I understand that some people want to watch it.

So what do I do? Ooh I use the remote control to turn over to another channel or to turn the TV off. Revolutionary!!!

I thought the show was very entertaining and the music was pretty good too. I also find it refreshing to hear lots of swearing. When stuff is bleeped on TV it always seems a bit odd to me.

Ice.

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Having only half-watched the second half, I must have missed that bit.
Would someone who watched the programme let me know where the show called Christians intolerant morons?

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Ermm, ermm, nope, wasn't in the show...I don't think.

I.

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Can you not see, that it's the same sort of thing?

It's come to a pretty pass when Jerry Springer gets so much support!

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It's not Jerry Springer, it's the OPERA that people wanted to see!

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Having only half-watched the second half, I must have missed that bit.
Would someone who watched the programme let me know where the show called Christians intolerant morons?>>

Oh, dear. Rather missing the point aren't we? The show might not have used term intolerant morons, and I do apologise for that inaccuracy!


You are rather having fun making up for that yourselves, though, aren't you?

I don't really understand why people who haven't seen something are offended by it. The question here is NOT about some people being offended by a work of art, it is trying to stop other people from watching said work of art and making up their own minds about it.

Personally, I didn't watch cos I couldn't be ar$ed.

I rather enjoyed it, too, and shock horror, I'm a Christian. I didn't think it was the best piece of muci theatre I've ever seen, but I did think it was clever, inventive and, yes, funny.

Let's clear up a couple of misconceptions:

* the swearing. No, there were NOT 8000 swear words, not even if you counted the chorus singing 'cats and dogs' in unison as '54 animal words' (when it's clearly two). The 'c' word was used very briefly, and was applied to the devil, which is fair enough, really (though I REALLY don't like that word).

* the blasphemy. Um, where? When Jesus, God, Satan, Mary etc. appear, it's in Jerry's mind, a fevered dream of a man who's just been shot. None of that section is meant to be real, and it's quite funny, really. The only really potentially offensive thing was the chorus saying that Mary was 'raped by the holy spirit', and to be honest, I can definitely see how you could interpet the story of Jesus' birth in that way if you wanted to.

Some comments of general criticism (which I also sent to a musical theatre discussion list) follow:

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The first act is an amusing parody of the actual Jerry Springer show (which I don't watch, but have seen bits of, e.g. in the 'putting it in context' show that preceded the opera on BBC2 last night). Loopy guests, some of whom clearly just want their fifteen minutes of fame, plus a rowdy audience, security guards and the rest. There are some nice touches when various people talk to the audience for a few seconds while everyone else freezes, and we get to see Jerry Springer's inner voice, in a bizarre operatic form which I won't spoil.

The second act, with the controversial descent into Hell, is nowhere near as controversial as has been made out. The whole thing takes place in Jerry's head, and is clearly his own imagination. Some ideas are downright funny. A couple who appeared in the first act reappear in the second as Adam and Eve. Adam's first words are the same as his appearance in the first act - 'Put some F***ing clothes on, you stupid b****.' God singing 'it ain't easy being me' is bizarre and Jesus/Satan trying to out-sing each other is breathtaking. I was somewhat bothered by Jesus using the 'f' word, but that can be excused by the 'it's in Jerry's head' argument.

This act is again a satire/parody of the whole Jerry Springer-type genre of television show, and really has to be taken on that level.

Come to think of it, the only person who really has cause to be offended by this is Jerry himself, as it doesn't exactly paint him in a positive light.

Musically, it's quite inventive, with traces of vaudeville and gospel as well as truly operatic arias and a couple of moments which made me thing of the Jealousy Duet from The Threepenny Opera. David Badella as the Warm-Up Man/Satan was sensational in all his numbers and the ensemble work was wonderful, too, both in terms of the music and the performance of it. I don't think I'll be rushing out to add this to my cast recordings collection, but I expect I'll get it eventually. The curtain call/finale section, which deftly sums up the whole experience musically is possibly the funniest section, with the repeated, staccato use of the 'f' word being somehow funny in this context. Don't ask me how, as the only other time I'd ever have considered the 'f' word funny is its singular use in the first act of Blood Brothers.

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I suspect that many people in my church and beyond will argue with me, but how many of them will actually have seen it? Very few, I'd think, and given the innacuracy of the protestors' claims, I think I can be quite safe in only taking anything seriously if it comes from someone, like me, who bothered to watch it in order to have a sensible, well-founded opinion of the show.

David

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Are you serious?

Vicky,
Just like the Birmingham Sikh Theatre protests, the biggest losers are the protesters.
Their protests tend to make other people view them, and possibly the wider Christan community in a bad light, which is why I think it is excellent that some Christians who have watched the play or the programme are happy to say here or on the 'Have Your View' page that they didn't have problems with it - if it was simply a case of protesters vs. non-Christians, many people could get a distorted impression of the community as a whole.

In practice, protests like this are almost bound to fail in the long term, even if they have short-term success.
I remember the whining when "Life of Brian" came out - it was close to being banned in my home town after action by local busybodies who it's pretty certain hadn't actually seen it. I'm sure the furore helped the box office enormously.

I'm not particularly scared by the prospect of people portraying cavers as intolerant or moronic, since my long experience has been that most of them are not.
In fact, the sport seems to attract or create people with a good sense of humour, independent thinking, tolerance and perspective, and generally filters out those with little common sense.

David, it's interesting to see your perspective on it, as you are obviously very knowledgeable about musical theatre (and especially as you are a Christian.)

I have to rely on what people say about it, as I am not in the UK, and although it almost certainly will be shown here in NZ, it hasn't been yet. I have been talking about it in the context of comments here about people who have protested it being shown. Most of the other posters seem to think that anyone protesting about it is just plain wrong.]

Personally, I don't think (when it is shown here) that I will subject myself to it, because although I appreciate parody, I think that cleverness doesn't require effing and blinding, and even if it is all in 'Jerry's' head, that doesn't really make it okay.

I could be wrong, but when I heard about it in the news here, I got the impression that Jerry himself had had a hand in writing it... He's been said to want to enter politics. maybe that's why he's ridiculing his own show?

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Yes, I was thinking this last night. Has anyone heard Jerry Springer's comments/thoughts about the opera?

Potholer, I want to make it clear that I was not calling cavers morons! I was simply trying to come up with an analogy to convey why I thought that some Christians might have protested this play. (Just as the Sikhs did theirs.)

I can see what you mean about protests - but at the same time, it does get very old - this play, the one in Scotland, the 'Virgin in a Condom' "art-work" in Te Papa museum in 2002 or 3 ... hey, maybe I'll write a play about all-singing, all-dancing atheists with M16s, fantasising about locking up Catholic nuns and school children in mental hospitals, and portraying Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire and Mark Twain performing frottage on one another while wearing togas and worshipping a statue of Ayn Rand in a wedding gown!

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Go for it!

I'll see what I can do... My brother would have been a good collaborator, he had a truly surreal sense of humour, and wrote some weird and wonderful things. But that cannot be - so I'll just try and do my best.

I didn't watch the show but as I tried to explain to my mum (A Catholic convert) the protesters did the BBC the biggest favour ever, they gave the show extra veiwers, hands up those that were never going to watch it but did, just to see what all the fuss was about, the protesters did exactly the opposite of what they wanted instead of getting people to stop watching it they got people intrested enough to switch on instead of off, the protesters should never have gone public as it encouraged people to watch it thereby making it the most popular thing on tv last night, the population don't take kindly to a minority telling them what they can and can't watch

>>"hey, maybe I'll write a play about all-singing, all-dancing atheists with M16s, fantasising about locking up Catholic nuns and school children in mental hospitals, and portraying Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire and Mark Twain performing frottage on one another while wearing togas and worshipping a statue of Ayn Rand in a wedding gown!"

Go ahead - I won't bother protesting against it. I might even watch if it's free.

I'm not sure many *thinking* (ie skeptical) atheists would give Ayn Rand the time of day, let alone worship her. To most skeptics, secular and religious cults are equally bad, or equally laughable (or both), and for the same reasons.

>>"Most of the other posters seem to think that anyone protesting about it is just plain wrong."

Wrong in their attitude that other people should only see what *they* think is appropriate for other people to see.
Wrong in that they are being counterproductive.
*Maybe* even wrong in the sense that they are following an unprovable (unfalsifiable?) view of the world indistiguishable (from the outside) from any number of other, incompatible, unprovable world views.

*Not* wrong in that they shouldn't be allowed to protest. Just wrong in that their protests should be ignored.

Hi Vicky, perhaps I was little over-zealous. My apologies.

I think what I was driving at, having woken up to this furore of dissent over the screening after arriving back in England this past week, and having watched it the broadcast. I thought it was a parody.

The Devil goes on Jerry Springer to demand an apology from God. The disclaimer before the second act was the clue since it says this segment requires a basic knowledge of the bible etc., before they set out to ridicule it by performing this struggle of good and evil in the style of a Jerry Springer fist-fight. (i.e. parodying it) and set the whole thing to music.

All the calls of blasphemy over the depiction of Jesus in a nappy etc, in my opinion is missing the point, since it is the typical depictions of theological figures that are also being parodied. (I thought Jesus whinging on about being crucified and the devil telling him to get over himself was inspired.)

It was ridicule for entertainment's sake - and it was pretty funny.
It is not a case of causing needless offence, as you say, rather I had thought a matter of published and be damned (perhaps literally in this case? ) I'd rather people just didn't watch a broadcast than seeking to veto other peoples desire to watch it. The BBC may have responsibilities as a public broadcaster re the licence fee etc., and I think it is living up to those quite admirably. Put this material out there to be seen (and let us not forget the fact that this has been a successful stage musical for several years now) and the public can make up their minds whether they like it or not, whether they agree with it, or not, whether it was offensive or not, or whether they found it amusing or as someone on the radio complained last night: just boring.

But it was late and I was tired and I didn't perhaps say all of that clearly enough. So hopefully this post can go some way to correcting that.

Let me just go on to say that it is for that reason that I find the pre-emptive dispute over the complaints made ahead of the broadcast so dubious, applying suspect arithmetic and counting the number of swearwords and so forth.

I may have appeared arrogant in saying have the protestors have got nothing better to complain about. I did not mean to be so, so let me step back from that and just say does it strike you as it does me that these 'defenders of decency' are just a little bit obsessive nay bordering on hypocritical to be so familiar with the content of a show that is supposed meant to be the cause of the offence about which they are complaining? I do not dispute their right to protest - I just decry all the wasted effort.

And to what end? I suspect more people ended watching the show than not because of the publicity it garnered ahead of time (I know that's why I watched it) and as to their cause: the protection of the public morality and little children, will bringing a civil prosecution upon the BBC, for of all things - blasphemy - really help?

that was in reply to post 18.

Interesting idea about the musial Vicky.

>> "will bringing a civil prosecution upon the BBC, for of all things - blasphemy - really help?"

If someone did, it might help consign the blasphemy laws to the dustbin where they belong.