ITV Cut Tim Minchin’s Christmas Song Amidst Fears Of Offending Christians And Right-Wing Press (UPDATE)

Jonathan Ross’ pre-Christmas show, which this year will feature the cast of The Inbetweeners, Tom Cruise and actors from Downton Abbey, also would have featured a merry Christmas tune written and performed by musical comedian Tim Minchin. However, ITV have chosen to cut the song from the show entirely due to fears that it was too irreverent for their viewing audience.

A spokeswoman told Chortle:

“We felt the tone wasn’t quite right for the Christmas show. But we do think Tim’s very talented and would love him to work with him on ITV shows again in the future.”

An important side of this that must be kept in mind was that Tim was invited by Jonathan Ross and producer Suzi Aplin to write and perform a song for the show. Knowing the context in which the show would be aired, the comedian decided to keep the song tame and silly.

“It was the worst possible time to be writing a new song – I’ve been overworked and ill, was on tour, and was really feeling the stress. But I wasn’t going to say no… it’s Jonathan Ross!

“So I got to writing. Being Christmas, I thought it would be fun to do a song about Jesus, but being TV, I knew it would have to be gentle. The idea was to compare him to Woody Allen (short, Jewish, philosophical, a bit hesitant), and expand into redefining his other alleged attributes using modern, popular-culture terminology.

“It’s not a particularly original idea, I admit, but it’s quite cute. It’s certainly not very contentious, but even so, compliance people and producers and lawyers all checked my lyrics long before the cameras rolled. As always with these bespoke writing jobs, I was really stressed for about 3 days, and almost chucked it in the bin 5 times, and freaked out that it wasn’t funny and all that boring shit that people like me go through when we’re lucky enough to have with a big audience with high expectations. And if I’m honest, it ain’t a world-changing bit of comedy.”

Therefore, the song had already been checked over before the show was taped, giving ITV ample opportunity to ask for any changes. Shortly before the show was aired, however, someone at ITV became nervous about the material and sent the tape over to ITV’s director of television Peter Fincham, who immediately insisted that it be cut from the show.

Perhaps this is understandable considering Minchin’s track record with songs about religion, which in turn have called the Pope a motherfucker(repeatedly), satirised blind faith and occasionally just had a good old muse about anal sex and God. Comparatively, this new song about the uncanny similarities between Woody Allen and Jesus is fairly inoffensive, not to mention being fun to sing along to.

Tim Minchin has responded to the decision on his blog, expressing disappointment at ITV being hamstringed by fears of criticism, claiming that,

“[Peter Fincham] did this because he’s scared of the ranty, shit-stirring, right-wing press, and of the small minority of Brits who believe they have a right to go through life protected from anything that challenges them in any way.

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

Luckily, the world of Youtube is free from such constraints and therefore you can watch the footage from the show in full via Tim Minchin’s official channel. If you’re hypersensitive enough to be offended by any mention of the name Jesus by anyone other than a fully licensed professional then you should probably cover your ears.

UPDATE: Jonathan Ross has tweeted “Really gutted that the brilliant @timminchin song has been cut from my show. Decision was out of my hands.”

Complaints can be sent to viewerservices@itv.com