It's hard to imagine that child sex abuse could be the stuff of a musical, but that's precisely what's about to happen at this years Edinburgh arts festival.
The eccentric entertainer's five decades of child sex abuse will be the subject under examination by a British writer at Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Titled Jimmy Savile — Punch and Judy, the show promises to tell the 'dark, irreverent tale” of how the 'cheekiest chappy in the land' turned into a serial abuser.
But victims of abuse l this week blasted the musical's premise as 'tasteless and attention seeking.'
The show's creator Nick Awde, 51, said he was ready for a backlash over the two-actor performance. 'I feel it’s my responsibility to make sure what Jimmy Savile did is not swept under the carpet. Like Savile, Punch was a national treasure but he was also pretty creepy, a wife-beater and child-killer. I’m quite prepared for a backlash, but I have an answer for everything.'
According to The Star, Awde described Savile as just like the 'ever-loveable rogue Mr Punch who gets away with everything.'
The show is set to run from August 1-26.
Savile, who for years presented the children's show Jim’ll Fix It, was exposed as a prolific pedophile last year when it emerged he had at least 450 victims, from 1955 to 2009. Some were as young as five.
But Peter Saunders of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood blasted the musical.
'If the people who are putting this thing on had any grasp of the damaging consequences of child abuse they wouldn’t even go there. We are still getting phone calls about Jimmy Savile and most victims want to see him airbrushed from history rather than remembered or celebrated,' Saunders said.
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