Andrew Davies, noted for the controversy over his adaptation of Tipping The Velvet, with its lesbian themes, is writing the script about the dreaming spires of Oxford and effete upper-class Englishmen. He told Screen International that he had a "darker, more heterosexual" approach to the novel than the television series.Instead of Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte's relationship, Davies is concentrating on the doomed love affair between Charles and Julia Flyte.
His script explores how Roman Catholicism destroys their relationship and families.Davies is Britain's most prominent television costume drama writer.
His credits include Pride and Prejudice, Vanity Fair, Dr Zhivago and the screenplay for the worldwide hit Bridget Jones's Diary.He said: "I am much less enamoured of all that Oxford snobbery than some people."Of his script, the first draft of which is finished, Davies said: "It is written from the point of view of someone who does not believe in the religious themes as Waugh did. If God can be said to exist in my version, he would be the villain."
