Do you hastily change channels when a talk show comes up on TV? If you do, it's possible that you've never seen The Jerry Springer Show. So a word of explanation. Richard and Judy this is not the atmosphere on Jerry Springer frequently gets heated, and the language is unrestrained, as guests on the show reveal details of extra-marital affairs and bitter family feuds.

The first half of Jerry Springer The Opera treats you as a TV studio audience. "Today all my guests have guilty secrets," says Jerry, as he introduces a man who is regularly dating not only two girls but a transvestite as well. Obscenities and fists fly. Next comes a grown man who likes to wear a giant nappy, and suck his thumb.

"I don't solve problems, I just televise them," Jerry tells us apologetically. As the recording session comes to a close, he gets shot for his troubles.

The second half of Jerry Springer The Opera is very different, and shows Jerry at the day of judgement. One minute he is serenaded by a heavenly choir, the next he's suspended above the fires of Hell. Various people from his television show reappear including a sacked warm-up man who turns out to be the Devil (Dean Hussain), and the nappy man, who has now become Jesus (Wills Morgan).

It's the thought of the adult Jesus appearing in a nappy that has incensed many of the protestors, who have called this show blasphemous 55,000 people complained before it was shown on BBC2. To be accurate, the nappy man is called Montel, and Jesus wears a costume much more akin to that of a Sumo wrestler. Show creators Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas fudge the issue of whether it is the same man, or one actor playing two different parts.

On opening night, around six impeccably well-behaved protestors were demonstrating outside the New Theatre. "Forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing," read one of their placards. That is not fair on the performers. Rolf Saxon (pictured, with dancing Klansmen) gives a carefully understated performance as Jerry his manner is rather that of a bewildered Oxford academic while the large ensemble cast sing and dance a difficult score with enthusiastic precision.

Richard Thomas's music is sometimes derivative, and lacks big tunes. But it does cleverly underline the central tenet of this show: it draws serious points from an extremely tacky and tasteless TV programme. Creators Thomas and Lee don't hit all their nails on the head, and at times this feels like an overblown Edinburgh Fringe show. Nonetheless, plenty of entertainment is provided along the way. Is the show blasphemous? I don't think so, but in the end that has to be a matter of opinion.