SENIOR BBC executives’ homes were protected by security guards last night after it went ahead with the controversial screening of the stage musical Jerry Springer: the Opera.

The BBC was inundated with more than 50,000 complaints about the show’s “blasphemous” content and foul language while scores of Christian activists protested outside its White City headquarters.

Executives were given protection by the private security firm Rubicon International, which protects BBC staff in Iraq, after a series of phone threats to their homes. Among those understood to have been given protection are Roly Keating, the controller of BBC2, which broadcast the programme, Jana Bennett, the director of television, Alan Yentob, BBC1’s creative director, and Lorraine Heggessey, the BBC1 controller.

A BBC insider said executives’ home telephones were also being intercepted because their families received “abusive and unpleasant” calls, after Christian Voice, an evangelical website, published their numbers and addresses on the internet.

Last night’s programme — which starred David Soul as Springer, the populist American chat show host — contained at least 450 f-words and c-words. But Christian groups were most incensed by the mocking of religious icons.

In one sketch, a Jesus character in a loincloth admitted he was a “bit gay” before swearing at the devil. Mary was shown bawling at her son for leaving her to fend for herself while a God character resembling Elvis Presley sang “It ain’t easy being me”.

Two of Britain’s most prominent churchmen — David Hope, the Archbishop of York, and Cormac Murphy- O’Connor, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster — were among those who criticised the broadcast.

Hope, the Church of England’s second most senior bishop, said: “The BBC pushed the boundaries of taste and decency too far. Choosing to see such a production in the theatre is one thing but spending public money on such an offering is quite another.”

Murphy-O’Connor, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, argued that the BBC should have thought more seriously about whom it might offend. “It is possible that deep and lasting offence will be caused to Christians as a result.”

But the BBC said the protection given to executives was “more in line with measures taken after running programmes on right-wing groups, football violence and racist groups rather than religious campaigners”.

Some of the threatening calls were made to the executives’ children warning that “something awful is going to happen”. Others, which have been passed to the police, were described as “serious threats against the person, quite frank and detailed”.

Several calls were made to family homes during last Wednesday’s three-minute silence in memory of the tsunami victims and the callers refused to desist. Others contained “an unremitting torrent of abuse and threats”.

The corporation is considering legal action against the callers. The executives’ addresses and telephone numbers were finally removed from the Christian Voice website after the intervention of the BBC’s lawyers. “People have a right to protest, but it cannot be right that public servants and their families and children are subject to torrents of threats and abuse,” a spokesman said.

Stephen Green, Christian Voice’s national director, said: “I don’t think it’s underhand because the only language these sort understand is people actually ringing them.”

He drew parallels with last month’s successful attempt by Sikh militants to ban the play Behzti (Dishonour) in Birmingham. He said: “The liberal intelligentsia think they can have a laugh at us and they’re perhaps finding out that they can’t. What the Sikhs did in Birmingham, what we’re doing now at White City and all over the country, is a reaction to provocation.”

The screening was approved by Bennett. Michael Grade, the chairman of the BBC, has seen the stage version and is said to have enjoyed it. Mark Thompson, the corporation’s director-general, who has also seen the stage version, issued a statement, saying: “I am a practising Christian but there is nothing in this which I believe to be blasphemous.”

Nicholas Hytner, the National Theatre’s artistic director, said he was “bewildered” by the protests, insisting that he only received a “small handful” of complaints when the musical was shown at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre in 2003.

Joan Bakewell, the broadcaster, said: “The Christian right is seeing what’s happened in the US and copying it. I don’t dispute that some people are upset by some bad language. In fact I blush a bit myself, but that’s no reason to take off a drama.”

• The BBC’s overall share of television viewers is reported to have fallen last year to its lowest level. A report from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board tomorrow will show a drop from 38.3% in 2003 to 36.6% in 2004.

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