Jerry Springer the Opera has caused a storm of controversy with some Christian groups denouncing it as blasphemous.

But one of its creators, Richard Thomas, says he's surprised and upset at the protests, explaining it's a night of good entertainment, with some excellent singing and more than a few laughs rather than a deliberate attack on religion.

Speaking frankly Richard said he found the idea the show was blasphemous preposterous.

"There are people that say the show has 8,000 swear words in it. Of course it doesn't. I wouldn't write a show with 8,000 swear words because it would be boring and no one would want to see it."

He added: "I'm totally surprised by it all. I think many of the people that were protesting initially hadn't seen the musical. And once they'd found out it wasn't what they said it was they couldn't really back down. It's a bit like living in this really weird Dali world.

"There was one person who stood up at the beginning of the show and started shouting it was blasphemous. The show hadn't even started. Nothing blasphemous had been said."

And while some people might think the controversy would result in better ratings Richard explains there is a real downside.

"It's caused a lot of heartache for people and prevented us from touring. There is such a thing as negative publicity. It has affected sales because I think that now the perceived wisdom is that the show is a filthy piece of blasphemy with thousands of swear words and who wants to see that?"

The 41-year-old said he came about the idea of putting the American talk show, famous for its audience shouting and guest fighting, to music about three or four years ago.

The Birmingham-born composer claimed turning the volatile talk show into an opera seemed like a natural thing to do.

He said: "I was watching the show one night and there were about eight singers of all shapes and sizes on stage and they were all screaming at each other, being heavily bleeped out, and there was an audience shouting at them and you couldn't really understand a word that was being said. I thought this is just like opera'.

"It seemed like quite a simple idea like most good ideas are."

Richard admits he didn't expect the show to receive the level of critical acclaim it has.

The show has earned a plethora of awards including; best new musical at the Olivier Awards 2004, winner of best musical Critics' Circle Awards 2003 and winner of best musical at the What's On Stage Awards 2004.

"They're all real," joked Richard. "We really won them all."

"I thought the show would go to Edinburgh, and then to a few theatres and then off to the West End," he explained.

Is there a message to the show? Richard said he's "an old fashioned entertainer", and wrote the play to entertain, rather than preach.

"If there is a message I'd say it was about compassion and tolerance but it's also about anger, argument, betrayal and deceit all those classic kind of operatic themes that you get in a Jerry Springer show.

"But really it's an entertaining show, with some great singing and some good laughs."

And according to Richard the feedback from Jerry Springer himself has been favourable.

"He's not sued. Which I'm grateful for," he said.

- Jerry Springer the Opera
Fairfield Halls, Croydon
Monday, June 26,
to Saturday, July 1
£15, £30 020 8688 9291
fairfield.co.uk