The poster for a forthcoming production of the play Bad Jews has been banned by Transport for London, on the grounds that it could cause “widespread or serious offence”.

The poster features a feuding trio of characters overlaid onto rapturous reviews from its run at St James theatre in London, ahead of its transfer to the Arts theatre from March 18. There was one complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about the posters for the St James run, but they deemed it would not cause “significant harm” or “provoke widespread offence”.

The poster for Bad Jews. Photograph: PR

TfL have however taken umbrage at the new version, despite it being very similar to the previous one. “The advert Bad Jews was previously displayed on our network as our advertising contractor approved it without consulting us,” they said in a statement. “It was subsequently submitted for display again and has been rejected as it contravened our advertising policy, which states that adverts will not be approved if they may cause widespread or serious offence.”

The play’s producers have reacted angrily in an interview with the Evening Standard. Danny Moar said the poster “could not be less antisemitic,” adding: “Half the cast are Jewish, I’m Jewish, the writer is Jewish and the word ‘bad’ in the title, in so far as it matters, doesn’t mean ‘evil’ – it means ‘non-observant’. This is a form of censorship which is so weird and ironic when, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo events, everyone marched against censorship.

“It won’t cripple the show but we want it to be seen by as many people as possible and we’re being prevented from trying to achieve that.”

The play, written by New Yorker Joshua Harmon, is about a pair of grandchildren of a Holocaust survivor, who meet up following his funeral. Each with very different levels of Jewish faith, they squabble over ownership of a gold ornament that he managed to preserve throughout the war. As Moar says, the title refers to the lapsed faith of one of the characters, and the play becomes an exploration of contemporary Jewish identity.

“If you’re a young Jewish person who’s engaged at all with your religion, you’ve met people from all sides of the spectrum. You’ve met people who are incredibly invested in it, and people who are incredibly dismissive of it, and everything in between,” Harmon explained in the Wall Street Journal last year.

The current London production transferred from Bath’s Ustinov Studio, where the Guardian’s Michael Billington said “it shows Harmon has the capacity to write scalding rhetoric... Michael Longhurst’s production also has the right claustrophobic intensity and is acted with suitable passion.”