Back on song, the Springer star who slept rough under bridge after breakdown

Jerry Springer: The Opera sold out night after night — helped by protests over its alleged blasphemy.

But for Wills Morgan who played Jesus and Montel, a nappy-wearing fetishist, the controversy over the show and nightly rows with protesters led to a breakdown. Following his mother Linda's death from cancer, he ended up sleeping under a bridge by the Grand Union Canal in Harlesden.

But now the 49-year-old tenor is being hailed by charities helping the homeless as an example of how lives can be turned around. He has found a new home in Willesden, sorted out tax bills and just auditioned for English National Opera, a company with whom he has not performed for 20 years.

Morgan is awaiting the result, but is busy preparing a recital in the US next year, where he studied after attending the Royal College of Music. He said he felt back on track, adding: "I am very happy." Morgan had been proud to be part of the team that developed the award-winning Jerry Springer at the Battersea Arts Centre, took it to Edinburgh and then the National Theatre.

The mood turned uglier after the show was broadcast on the BBC. On a regional tour, protesters from Christian Voice greeted the cast each night. "I decided to take on the fundamentalists if they confronted me. Somebody needed to put up an argument," Morgan said. "They were claiming an ownership of God that was inappropriate."

After the tour Morgan secured some TV work, but in 2007 and last year "the work dried up", he said. "It all went wrong and I sunk into a blue funk. My friends described it as a breakdown and that's a good word for it."

Eventually friends put him in touch with the Brent Mind mental health charity and a string of housing bodies. Bob Butler, of the Genesis Housing Group who advised him on his finances, said: "When he came to me, he had been traumatised by Jerry Springer and then his mother died. His life fell apart. He is definitely one of my success stories."