BBC to revisit Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Controller Charlotte Moore and drama controller Ben Stephenson have ordered the dramas, which include Line Of Duty creator Jed Mercurio’s version of DH Lawrence’s controversial 1928 novel, previously adapted for BBC1 by Ken Russell in 1993.

The sexually explicit novel, which details an affair between an upper-class woman and her gamekeeper, was censored in the UK for 30 years.

The project is a co-production between Hartswood Films and Serena Cullen Productions, and will be produced by Cullen with Sherlock exec Beryl Vertue on board as executive producer. Mercurio has written and will direct.

Meanwhile, Ben Vanstone is adapting Laurie Lee’s childhood memoir Cider With Rosie, about growing up in a Cotswold village on the verge of industrial change.

The drama will reunite Origin Pictures with Jamaica Inn director Philippa Lowthorpe.

Adrian Hodges is adapting and executive producing LP Hartley’s The Go-Between, a novel about an elderly man who pieces together his childhood memories after finding his diary from 1900.

The adaptation is being made by BBC Drama Production and is executive produced by Sue Hogg and produced by Claire Bennett.

Rounding out the season is a version of JB Priestley’s play An Inspector Calls. The detective thriller, set in 1912, is being made by Greg Brenman’s indie Drama Republic and directed by the award-winning Aisling Walsh.

Casting is under way on all four projects, which are scheduled to begin shooting later this year. Moore said the season of films would “explore and contextualise the enormous changes in the way men and women lived in the 20th century”.

Stephenson said that themes such as the role of women, class, sexuality and the impact of the First World War will “ebb and flow across each film”.

 “I hope that viewed together, these four masterpieces will present an intelligent and involving picture of what it was like to live in Britain 100 years ago,” he added.