Didn't they do well!

The critics have pronounced it as "triumph, tragedy and trailer trash, as high art meets low", "utter, impure theatrical pleasure" and "an exhilarating foulmouthed fiesta". But, two years ago, Jerry Springer - The Opera (JSTO) was just a notion in the mind of composer Richard Thomas. From workshopping at Battersea Arts Centre, where comedian Stewart Lee joined in as librettist, it went on to become the hit of last year's Edinburgh Fringe.

There, Nicholas Hytner, the National Theatre's incoming artistic director, saw it, loved it and booked it for the South Bank. It is now a huge hit all over again. But who else is behind this extraordinary show?

Jerry Springer

Born in East London to Jewish parents escaping Hitler's Germany and en route to a new life in the United States, Springer, 59, is an intelligent man with an active social conscience. Considering that he could have had his lawyers end JSTO's life at birth, he obviously has a sense of humour, too - "Good Lord, I've got culture: I'm an opera. Who would have thought?"

He fronts The Jerry Springer Show, a daytime TV chat programme that gives America's forgotten minority - poor white trash - a forum for their most individual of lifestyles. Themes covered include Sex with My Sister, I Married a Horse and Bring on the Bisexuals. You couldn't make it up, but you could make an opera out of it.

Tom Morris

JSTO began life at a "scratch night" at Battersea Arts Centre, where plays and operas are workshopped from the germ of an idea to fully fledged works. Under 39-year-old Morris's innovative and inspired artistic direction, opera has been redefined at BAC's annual Opera Festival, which is running this month and in September. Look out for BAC's Newsnight: the Opera, another JSTO, perhaps?

Richard Thomas

Best known for his collaboration with comedian Simon Munnery on Cluub Zarathustra, Thomas, 39, first mooted the idea of JSTO at BAC with How to Write an Opera About Jerry Springer in February 2001.

Alone at the piano, he invited members of the audience ( double figures on a good night) to make suggestions for the show's content, with payment in the form of cheap lager in the bar afterwards (one beer per idea). The scratch nights quickly became a cult hit.

Stuart Lee

One half of the successful comedy duo Lee and Herring, Lee, 36, went into comedy direction and writing (Simon Minnery, Harry Hill), while his erstwhile partner developed his playwriting skills. Lee turned up at BAC on one scratch night in spring 2001; he and Thomas chatted after the show and Thomas invited Lee to develop the idea. They co-wrote the book and lyrics and Lee is now directing JSTO.

Allan McKeown

A TV producer on both sides of the Atlantic (Tracey Takes On, Birds of a Feather, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet), the 56-year-old Mr Tracey Ullman told his wife on their way to the first singthrough last May that he had put money into the show without hearing a note or reading a word of the libretto. His wife, aghast, said: "You idiot."

Halfway through the performance, she whispered: "How much of the show do we own?"

"Fifty per cent," he replied. "Idiot," Ullman hissed. "You should have bought the lot."

Avalon

Originally promoters, managers and publicists of comedians such as Frank Skinner, David Baddiel, Harry Hill and Al Murray, Avalon has lately moved into television and now theatre production. It became involved with JSTO in August 2001 via its management of Lee. Loved by clients for its no-holds-barred attitude to contract negotiation, Avalon is loathed in equal measure by others in the comedy and TV industries.

Despite having "West End hit" written all over it, JSTO has ended up at the National, because, rumour has it, major impresarios were unwilling to jump into bed with Avalon. One went so far as to tell it to get lost - it's that popular. Avalon's publicity and schmoozing blitz for JSTO has, however, achieved a visibility in the media that other producers can only envy.