A radio comedy featuring sketches of a cow flying into the Twin Towers and cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed has been pulled days before it was due to air, it emerged today.
The second series of the Franz Kafka Big Band has been taken off BBC Radio Scotland amid concerns about controversial content.
The five-part series was to be broadcast nightly from Monday August 28, but BBC executives said the "bold" show by the Glasgow-based troupe required "fine tuning".
The show has a segment called Rolf's Blasphemous Cartoon Time portraying Rolf Harris drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and Buddha.
Another sketch has a voice-over for a famine appeal while the person is eating. There is also sexual content.
The group's second series was billed as "sure to surprise even the most unshockable" when commissioned.
But Nick Low, executive producer, defended the work of the group, who have been in talks with the BBC over a television deal.
He said: "We are disappointed because we have been working on this for eight months and now I don't know if it will see the light of day.
"The Franz Kafka Big Band have always been about not compromising. It is very funny and dark and we have delivered what we thought the BBC were looking for.
"They have been supportive, it is just whether we can thrash things out. I don't think we are talking fine tuning, there are major changes that would need to be done."
Big Band writer and producer Colin Edwards said: "It's frustrating but the BBC have given us a lot of freedom, although we have to go back it's just coming to common ground."
A BBC spokesman said: "The programme has been postponed because it needs fine-tuning."
