Even though the number of complaints is running at 50,000, the BBC is not without powerful supporters: Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, which first staged the play; Tom Morris, brother of the television star Chris Morris, who developed the stage show, and Stewart Lee, who wrote it with Richard Thomas, all say the BBC was well within its rights to screen the programme.

Critics say the broadcast has more than 400 swear words, including fuck and cunt, and shows Jesus in a nappy admitting he is 'a bit gay'. Bishop Michael Reid of the Pentecostal Church in Brentwood, Essex, who is leading the protest by an alliance of Christian groups, described the musical as 'filth'.

Hytner, who saw potential in an early Edinburgh fringe festival production of the opera, believes the criticisms are irrelevant and misplaced. 'I don't see much of a problem here for anybody,' he said. 'There are plainly people who see and enjoy this show and plainly plenty of people who are amused by it. Audiences like it because it pushes the boundaries of good taste and makes fun, very cleverly, of some musical traditions. If you don't want to see it, then you should not be watching it.'

Hytner said the show had such broad appeal that it was not 'in any way outside the remit of the BBC ... It can be enjoyed by the high brow and the low brow', he said.

Protesters, championed by the national viewers' organisation Mediawatch, which claimed the show had 8,000 swear words, alleged the it was obscene and not a suitable choice for the BBC.

Its subject matter is the battle between good and evil and its naughty libretto includes the line: 'My boyfriend doesn't know I'm a man', as well as the refrain, 'So dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians.'

Previously, the most complained about programme on British TV was Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ, which sparked 1,554 complaints when it was shown in 1995.

BBC director-general Mark Thompson stood firm under the unprecedented pressure, issuing a statement on Friday night that said: 'I am a practising Christian, but there is nothing in this which I believe to be blasphemous.'

The opera, which stars David Soul as the eponymous host of the notoriously foul-mouthed and aggressive American television institution, The Jerry Springer Show, was a sensation at the National Theatre last year, where it had its London premiere. Later it transferred to the West End and won many showbusiness awards.

Morris, who first brought the show to audiences when he ran an arts centre in Battersea and who now works with Hytner at the National, was even more bullish in defence than his boss. 'The idea that a swearword should prevent a work of art being shown on TV is absurd,' Morris said.

Lee, who is working on a new musical, underlined his belief that the show is 'exactly what a public-funded broadcaster should be showing'. He said he was 'insulted' that the campaign against the screening 'appeared to have been orchestrated by people who haven't even seen it and don't have any of their facts right'.

'The number of profanities, when I did a check on my computer, was far less than in Reservoir Dogs and several thousand less than the number alleged by Mediawatch.'

However Tory deputy leader Michael Ancram brought the row over the screening of the opera into the political arena yesterday, when he told Radio Four audiences of the Any Questions? show the BBC was deliberately luring more viewers by broadcasting a piece of entertainment that was bound to cause an upset.

'What they are trying to do is to get people to watch it because they think it is going to shock them. I don't think it is the duty of the BBC to do that,' he said.