The Blasphemers' Banquet is a film-poem created in 1989 by English poet and playwright Tony Harrison which examines censorship arising from religious issues. It was created in part as a response to the Salman Rushdie controversy surrounding his publication of The Satanic Verses. It was aired by the BBC 1's programme Byline on 31 July 1989.The verse-film is set at the Omar Khayyám restaurant in Bradford where Harrison is holding a banquet with invited guests such as Omar Khayyám, Salman Rushdie, Voltaire, Molière and Byron.The film at the time of its airing created a controversy in Britain when then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie advised the BBC to postpone the showing of the film and the BBC writing a reply to him defending the airing of the broadcast.