By MATTHEW HOLEHOUSE - THE TELEGRAPH
Added: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:13:36 UTC

Tim Minchin, an Australian comedian, wrote and performed the song for Jonathan Ross' Christmas broadcast. The show was recorded last week and is due to be broadcast tomorrow night.

It describes Christ as a "zombie" and a "telepathic vampire", and was approved by the show's producers and lawyers, Minchin claimed, but cut on the orders of Peter Fincham, ITV's director of television who resigned from the BBC over a programme trailer that misrepresented the Queen.

In the performance Minchin likened the resurrection of Jesus to the 1978 horror film 'Dawn of the Dead', singing: "Try that these days you'd be in trouble, geeks would try to smack you with a shovel."

"Jesus lives forever, which is pretty odd, but not as odd as his fetish for drinking blood," he sang while playing the piano before a studio audience and fellow guests including Tom Cruise, the actor, and the cast of Downton Abbey.

In a reference to the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth, Minchin sang: "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."

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TAGGED: RELIGION, TV