Middle England had better get ready to choke on its cocoa this weekend, because BBC Radio 3 is poised to unleash a "contemporary adaptation" of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

The word "contemporary" gives the game away, and listeners can expect an earful of expletives in playwright Jonathan Holloway's reworking of the 1847 novel.

He elaborated: "That's what I wanted to elbow out, this idea that it's the cosy greatest love story ever told. It's not."

The BBC does provide some evidence that Holloway's "left field" production isn't as much of a potential outrage against the novel as it might appear. Andrew McCarthy, main man down at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, explained that the author crossed out some terms in the original manuscript on the grounds they were "too strong".

Radio 3's Wuthering Heights will be broadcast on Sunday at 20:00 GMT, preceded by a content warning. ®

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