What the Dickens has the BBC done?

I AM appalled that the BBC has reworked Great expectations to include bad language and references to the empire that were not in the Charles Dickens novel.

Is the BBC so obsessed with the F-word that it needs to be in every drama? If it wants to adapt classic novels, it should stay true to the original. I will not watch this trash.

GRAHAM MARSH, Stockport, Cheshire.

I READ with utter despair the Mail’s article about the BBC production of Great expectations, a story I love and a drama I was really looking forward to. Why on earth do people think they can sabotage the writings of someone as brilliant as Dickens? It is an act of extreme arrogance to imagine what he ‘might have written’. The BBC is trying to sex it up so it’s more appealing to the younger generation, who most likely have never read the book. The writer Steven Knight may be brilliant, but let him stick to his own stories rather than ruining a classic.

DELMA FENTON, Hinxton, Cambs.

IN VIEW of its cavalier treatment of Great expectations with added antiBritish empire comments, the BBC should rename it Woke expectations.

D. HARTLEY, Solihull, W. Mids.

OH, GOOD grief, Miss havisham a drug addict? Pip bawling vulgarities? What next: Magwitch returns in triumph to Australia as ambassador, having married estella? This is a Dickens adaptation too far with overdone political correctness. If clever adaptation is what you’re looking for, watch Tony Jordan’s Dickensian — 20 episodes of well-developed, revisited characters and superb dialogue with the best ever depiction of Scrooge.

DOUG JENNINGS, Mickleton, Glos.

STEVEN KNIGHT says that in his adaptation of Great expectations he has ‘tried to . . . imagine if Dickens was writing the story now’. Therefore, I’m looking forward to Pip friending estella on Facebook; Magwitch, with the backing of the Labour Party, suing the wicked Conservative government for false imprisonment; Pip producing a book and TV series about how unfair it was being raised by Joe Gargery; and the revelation that Miss havisham announced the cancellation of her wedding on Twitter because she is in a relationship with Mrs Whimple and wants to be her authentic self.