My e-mail to the Beeb. You can contact them at info@bbc.co.uk.

Dear BBC,

I am concerned at the large number of complaints you appear to have received in advance of Saturday’s scheduled screening of “Jerry Springer – the Opera”.

This show has been performed to thousands of theatregoers in two years in the West End. It has won critical plaudits and continues to draw in audiences. I was pleased to hear that the BBC would be translating the show to screen and therefore allowing interested viewers such as myself, who have been unable to see the opera on stage, to experience it and judge it for ourselves.

While the content of the programme will no doubt prove offensive to some people, the already high profile campaign against the broadcast should serve to warn off any viewers likely to be offended. (And yet I can’t help the nagging feeling that many of those will, perversely, tune in anyway to justify their subsequent complaints to OFCOM.) As a public service broadcaster, the BBC has a responsibility to all licence payers, not just the “moral majority”. While I find various programmes to enjoy amongst the BBC’s output, there are many shows I would never watch. This is how it should be. A BBC pandering solely to the prurience of organisations such as MediaWatch is a BBC for a vocal minority. The BBC must continue to show a diverse and challenging range of programming.

I am pleased that the BBC has insisted that “Jerry Springer – The Opera” will be shown and I hope you will continue to defend your position robustly. I look forward to watching the show on Saturday night.