Correspondents on both sides of the fence appear to have missed an important point about Jerry Springer, The Opera.

It is, in fact, a morality play whose principal character, a rascally chatshow host, is shot and grievously wounded as a consequence of his reprehensible behaviour.

While he lies in a delirium prior to the arrival of an ambulance, his layman's knowledge of theology and memory of the show he was conducting when injured combine as a hallucinatory vision of hell. By the end of the show, this has made him reconsider his wicked ways.

I certainly don't take the character's hallucinations/visions as literal representations of God, Jesus Christ or the Devil, all of whom appear in the vision, muddled up with the people he has been interviewing.

Supporters of the show seem to have been more interested in freedom of expression, completely missing the show's call to repentance, while the Christian right will miss the same through aligning themselves with Ayotollah Khomeini, who condemned Salman Rushdie over a book the Ayatollah hadn't taken the trouble to read.

-Mr GE Stroud, Coldean