Enter, stage right: Nick Griffin, the really creepy opera

Greer says sitting next to Nick Griffin (left) 'was
probably the weirdest and most creepy experience of my life'

Bonnie Greer inspired to write show after sitting next to the party leader on 'Question Time'

One was a pneumatic Playboy model; the other is the leader of the BNP. Now Nick Griffin is set to follow in Anna Nicole Smith's footsteps when he becomes the inspiration for an opera at Covent Garden.

Following the success of Anna Nicole Smith: The Opera earlier this year, the Royal Opera House is to stage the new commission in November. It has been written by the critic and playwright Bonnie Greer. The idea came about after Greer sat next to Griffin on Question Time in October 2009. She described the experience as "probably the weirdest and most creepy experience of my life".

The BNP leader spent much of the show defending his views against a barrage of criticism, leaving the Chicago-born playwright with a quiet moment in which to draw inspiration. It was then that the idea for Yes, an opera about the experience, entered her mind. Soon after, the ROH commissioned her to write the libretto, with music by Errollyn Wallen.

It is the first time that two black women have collaborated on a new work at Covent Garden. Yes lasts only one hour and will be performed at the ROH's Linbury Studios. The show centres on the two-week period running up to that episode of Question Time, the BBC panel show hosted by David Dimbleby.

Greer says she had "no idea" what she was signing up to when she agreed to appear next to Griffin, who had recently been elected to the European Parliament. The decision by the BBC to invite him on to the show provoked a fierce response, with protests staged outside Television Centre. The episode was watched by almost eight million people, the largest audience in its 32-year history.

Greer's stock rose after she managed to remain calm as she debated race issues while sitting next to a rather excitable Griffin, who did his best to play down his views on race and repatriation. In writing the opera, Greer said she has tried to articulate what the experience taught her. The show will have a new relevance following last month's massacre in Norway, which was racially motivated.

"I think the English Defence League is symptomatic of a crisis of identity of place, loss of power and influence and fear," says Greer. "Unless societies tackle this, it is going to be more dangerous. The people who want to talk about it are not in power."

Musical numbers in the opera include an Asian teacher in a hijab singing about the history of the UK from 1066, and the song of a white working-class man weary of hearing about diversity.

"This government has decided that multicultural is evil," says Greer. "This is where art and culture comes in. It can go where people are too afraid to go – it can pose questions without answers. That's what this opera does – it allows you to see states of being. People now want to hear what people are feeling and the depths of that visceral feeling. That is what I attempt to capture."

The BNP said last night that it had contacted Greer offering help with the opera: "But we haven't heard back from her. We are looking forward to it."

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Playwright Bonnie Greer writes 'BNP: The Opera'

THAT Question Time, with 'creepy' Griffin and Bonnie Greer

Bonnie Greer described sitting next to Nick Griffin on Question Time as "probably the weirdest and most creepy experience of my life". Mandrake can disclose that it has, however, proved inspirational for the American-born playwright, who is planning to stage an opera about the rise of the British National Party.

"It's a modern opera because the country is an opera," she told me at the launch of her book Obama Music, at the Sanctum Soho Hotel, in London. "It's a conglomeration of voices. The people are speaking and the people are singing."

The 61-year-old author, who is married to a British solicitor-turned-teacher, David Hutchins, said she was involved in discussions with the Royal Opera House about staging her planned work. "I'm talking to ROH2 to see if they're interested," she said.

Greer said her appearance on the controversial edition of the BBC programme, which achieved a record figure of more than eight million viewers, had transformed her life. "It's been a whirlwind," she said. "My life has just changed. I've been a pretty solitary person, and since then I've been walking down the street and people are talking to me. I have just been on a television programme that I do once a year, and it meant so much to people. I feel so humble."

The BBC was criticised for inviting the BNP leader to appear on the panel of its flagship political discussion programme, but Greer said Mark Thompson, the director-general of the corporation, made the correct decision.

"The BBC's job is to educate," she said. "The party does have the same amount of voters as Ukip. It's about the people who decided that that's the party that they want to vote for. The BBC's obligation was to respect that. I think it's about respect: we need to listen to one another. Question Time is enabling that listening to happen. The people made that choice; we don't want a Victorian society where our betters decide what we need."

Greer, who acquired British citizenship in 1997, is the daughter of a Mississippi sharecropper who was stationed in Britain during the Second World War and took part in the D-Day landings.

Telegraph