Shameless Channel 4

The television drama series Shameless is evidently trying to live up to its name.

On billboards across the country, a poster advertising the Channel 4 programme's Christmas edition appears to depict a drunken Frank Gallagher, played by David Threlfall, as Jesus Christ.

Now the advertising watchdog is investigating after receiving complaints that the poster is 'sacrilegious'.

The ad shows 12 members of the feckless Gallagher family enjoying a drunken Christmas dinner in a deliberate take-off of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, which depicts the final meal between Jesus and his disciples before his death.

In the centre of the poster, Threlfall's character is slumped over the table holding a beer can and cigarette.

The Advertising Standards Authority said it had received seven complaints about the ad 'on religious grounds' and was investigating.

If the ASA deem the ad to have caused offence, it could be banned.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Church of England in Greater Manchester said: 'We are concerned that this has caused offence and can see why some Christians and people of other faiths might be offended.' Shameless, which is written by Burnleyborn Paul Abbott, the man behind Cracker and Clocking Off, follows the lives and loves of the Gallagher family on a rundown housing estate in Manchester.

The show has been nominated for the Best TV Comedy Drama at this year's British Comedy Awards.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: 'The intention is to produce a comic contrast between the original painting and the Gallaghers in full festive mood. The aim was not to offend.'