Zlin, South Moravia/Prague, Feb 13 (CTK) – The satellite transmission of the satirical revue entitled “Cabaret Ovcacek,” ridiculing President Milos Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek, was seen in the pictures by 17,652 people and its last screening was held in Prague on February 7, Jana Stranska, from the organising company, told CTK on Monday.
The cabaret also targets some political representatives. It was transmitted to 70 cinemas across the Czech Republic.
The gross sales revenues from the programme in the pictures reached 3,750,000 crowns, Stranska said.
“Some 13,000 viewers saw a direct transmission from the Prague Bohnice sanatorium for the mentally ill and the rest saw the recordings made on the same day, immediately after the end of the live transmission,” Stranska said.
“In doing so, the theatre tripled the total number of the viewers of the cabaret because the premiere and reruns in Zlin and productions in Brno, Ostrava, north Moravia, and Prague were seen by 5,000 viewers in theatres,” Stranska said.
This set a new record number of viewers watching a direct satellite transmission in Czech pictures, she added.
“The show was absolutely and almost sold out in many towns across the Czech Republic,” Stranska said.
“Four months ago, when the idea was being suddenly shaped, we did not even dream of such a grandiose finale for Ovcacek,” director of the production Petr Michalek said.
Some pictures did not have any experience with satellite transmission or recording, Stranska said.
“The atmosphere of the transmission was very pleasant, the viewers came to it from the whole area. People were laughing during the production and applauded it at the end,” a representative of a cinema said.
Michalek, one of the co-authors of the revue, said before the premiere last November that the text had been written in two days and rehearsed only four times. The revue mainly reacts to the situation with state orders awarded by Zeman on October 28, 2016.
Politicians and other public personalities criticised the fact that Jiri Brady, 88, a Holocaust survivor of Czech origin, had not received a state order from the president.
Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) accused Zeman of warning him that he would not present Brady (his relative) with the Order of T.G. Masaryk on the national holiday on October 28 if Herman met the Dalai Lama. After Herman did so, Brady’s name was allegedly deleted from the list of the personalities to be awarded by Zeman.
Some politicians did not attend the October 28 award-giving ceremony, hosted by Zeman at Prague Castle, the presidential seat, over it.
The revue was created spontaneously by a group of underground performers called Pia Fraus.
Apart from Zeman and Ovcacek, the characters of the Dalai Lama as well as the first Czechoslovak president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, Brady with his wife and some politicians appeared on the stage.
The script of the revue was updated at the very last moment to reflect the latest developments. It includes, for instance, Zeman’s words on U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and his call on PM Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) to dismiss Herman.
