From Battersea Arts Centre to the Edinburgh Festival, from The National to the West End - and from glowing reviews to front-page news; Jerry Springer: The Opera has transcended its origins on the comedy fringe to become the most talked about show of the new millennium.

And this could be your last chance to see what all the fuss is about, as it finally comes to the end of a troubled national tour.

In 2000, at the height of Britain's obsession with American talk-show Jerry Springer, the comedian and composer Richard Thomas was struck by a correspondence between these televised slagging matches and watching opera.

Joined by cult Nineties stand-up Stewart Lee as the librettist, Thomas set about writing a surreal opera based around a typical episode of the talk show, with the character of Springer cynically presiding over a cast of highly-strung guests competing to out their various persuasions and perversions.

The show went on to win all four Best Musical awards. But many Christians took issue with the second and third parts in which Springer, shot by one of his guests, hallucinates a purgatorial version of his show in which biblical characters became the decidedly unholy guests.

In January 2005, when BBC2 announced its decision to broadcast a performance, the station received 55,000 complaints.

Tellingly, they received only 8,000 following the screening - the vast majority of complainants have not seen the show and misunderstand its intentions.

But this didn't stop the demonising of Thomas, Lee, and whoever gave the show support.

Later that year, when a national tour was scheduled for early 2006, Christian Voice led a virulent campaign to stop it.

And when it went ahead in spite of a third of the venues pulling out, the organisation called for protests at the remaining dates.

"It's been completely surreal," says Rolf Saxon, the British-based American who has now been playing Jerry Springer for six months.

And he's not referring to the experience of sharing the stage with a chorus of tapdancing Kl u Klux Clan members eight times a week.

"There's been some disgusting mail, I've actually had hands laid on me, and there's been some kind of prayer vigil at every venue.

"Usually they just come on Press night, have their Jerry Springer moment, then crawl back under whatever rock they crawled out from under.

"In Cardiff the protesters had such beautiful voices we actually came out and listened to them for a while. It was worth the price of the ticket just to hear them."

As well as struggling with a temperamental flying gibbet (a reduced budget means Springer's descent into hell is not always smooth), and the entirely new challenge of fitting his dialogue around musical cues, Saxon has, on this tour, found himself called upon to engage in theological debate.

He says he has sympathy with those Christians who have seen the show and find parts of it offensive ("to be honest when I first saw it I thought, 'Oh my God, how did they get away with that?' ").

And in a similar spirit, many of those Christians in question - notably the vicar of Norwich, who was attacked for the declaration have said that they are happy for people to see and debate the show.

But Saxon is concerned that, "in all the kerfuffle about the supposedly blasphemous aspects", we're losing sight of Jerry Springer: The Opera as a "clever, funny show full of exceptional music."

"It is part of the genius and the flaw of this piece," he's decided, "that it means so many different things to different people. What really jumped out at me was the moral desolation that we live in.

"Jerry Springer is a man who makes enormous amounts of money ridiculing and vilifying people who have troubles. And yet millions of Britains and Americans saw and loved his show. What kind of society is that?"

Starts at 7.30pm, Sat mat 2.30pm. Tickets cost £18-£32.50, call 01273 709709.