AD/BC: A Rock Opera (2004) Matt Berry

AD/BC is a parody rock opera with music by Matt Berry and lyrics by Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade. It aired on BBC Three in 2004.

An all-singing, all-dancing, star-spangled musical leap around the biblical story of the Nativity, set in 1972. With a comic twist, this familiar story is brought to life through the eyes of the innkeeper. Despairing after a bad year, he contemplates suicide but his attempt is stalled by a voice from above who points out that King Herod is coming to town.

The opera is a pastiche of the life-of-Christ rock operas popular in the early 1970s, such as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. Sitting at a piano in the late 70s (1978, several years past the time when Jesus-themed rock operas had been popular), writer Tim Wynde (Matt Berry) introduces his creation as a new telling, "told in rock", of the birth of Christ, this time from the point of view of the Innkeeper.

What follows is a production that deftly parodies early 70s life-of-Jesus rock operas, including familiar elements like crowds gathered behind chain-link fencing, 70s-modern products like chrome floor lamps and telephone booths juxtaposed against the 1 BC Middle Eastern setting, and period-perfect music, clothes, language, and choreography. Repeated comic motifs include the use of poorly synchronized and mixed Dubbing and high, hard-rock-style vocal notes, in the manner of 70s Robert Plant or Ian Gillan, inserted incongruously and sustained for absurdly long durations.

It was produced by Steve Coogan's production company Baby Cow and features friends and colleagues of the writers, including The Mighty Boosh's Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, Julia Davis, Rich Fulcher, and Matt Lucas, as well as Berry and Ayoade themselves. It was shown only once on the BBC and was released on DVD in the UK on 19 November 2007.

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