LONDON (Reuters) — A foul-mouthed opera which pans a lurid U.S. television talk show will either be loved or hated when it opens on Broadway in October next year, the show’s producer says.

“Jerry Springer — The Opera,” which has received rave reviews in Britain, will have its first U.S. premiere in San Francisco’s Orpheum Theater in early spring, 2005.

Producer Jon Thoday told Reuters he thought the profanity-laden show, which features the confessions of a diaper fetishist and a dance routine by Ku Klux Klan characters, will either get a brilliant or terrible reception in the United States, against the backdrop of a government crackdown on indecency.

“All we can really go on is what’s happened here. Americans who have seen it here have absolutely loved it,” Thoday said, adding that some Stateside theater-goers had flown over to London especially to catch the show.

“They got standing ovations, they screamed and shouted, so if what people say when they see it here is anything to go by, it’ll be received very well.”

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has led a crackdown on indecency in the media following singer Janet Jackson’s breast-baring Super Bowl performance in February on prime-time television.

“It’s a risky thing to do something which pushes the boundaries of musical theater, but you know “Life of Brian” was a huge hit,” Thoday said, referring to Monty Python’s controversial 1979 biblical satire about a Jew from Nazareth who is worshiped as the Messiah and crucified by the Romans.

Thoday said the firm also hoped to take the opera — which fictionalizes the Jerry Springer talk show that has been screened on 100 U.S. television stations and in more than 20 countries — to Australia in the not-too-distant future.