Agreeing to disagree: Peter Hitchens, right, with his brother Christopher in Grand Rapids

Why would they want two British brothers with plummy voices to squabble on stage about Iraq and God?

The idea had sounded attractive enough months ago when I was first asked.

I had just broken a long-standing rule and written a review of Christopher's rather silly book on God - reasoning that I knew as much about the subject as he did.

But Christopher has now attained full star status here, a mythical figure allegedly able to absorb unfeasible quantities of alcohol while remaining fully coherent and astonishingly, pungently rude.

These would, for the most part, be his fans come to see God mocked in the usual way.