ITV pulls Tim Minchin's Jesus song

Tim Minchin is irked that ITV has decided to cut his song mocking Jesus from The Jonathan Ross Show.

The Australian comedian and atheist accused ITV of being "scared of the ranty, s***-stirring, right wing press and the small minority of Brits who believe they have a right to go through life protected from anything that challenges them in any way”.

Minchin was asked to write and perform a song for the Christmas edition of the talk show, which airs tonight.

In the song, “Woody Allen Jesus”, Minchin compares Jesus to a “zombie” and a “telepathic vampire”, and to TV magician Derren Brown.

The lyrics also make fun of the virgin birth.

“Jesus’ mother gave birth to him without having sex with a dude, no she would never be that rude, never even been nude with a dude.

“Breeding without the opposite gender is commonly known as parthenogenesis, other animals that don’t need males include a lot of lizards and various snails.”

Writing on his blog, Minchin said the idea behind the song was “to compare [Jesus] to Woody Allen (short, Jewish, philosophical, a bit hesitant), and expand into redefining his other alleged attributes using modern, popular-culture terminology”.

He said the lyrics for “Woody Allen Jesus” had been checked before filming and that the show’s producer was happy with the “balance” of content for tonight's broadcast.

The comedian said he thought the song was “silly, harmless” and “not very contentious”.

“It’s hardly the end of the world. But I have to admit I’m really disappointed,” he said.

Jonathan Ross wrote of his own disappointment over the decision on his Twitter page: “Really gutted that the brilliant Tim Minchin song has been cut from my show. Decision was out of my hands.”

In a statement, ITV said the song was cut because “tonally, it wasn’t right for the show”.