The BBC is set to raise eyebrows with an adaptation of Wuthering Heights complete with expletives.

Romantic figures Heathcliff and Cathy will both use the F-word in Radio 3’s version of one of literature’s most famous love stories.

Playwright and theatre director Jonathan Holloway defended using a number of swear words in his reworking of Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel for the BBC.

He told Radiotimes.com that the Haworth-set story would have shocked its readers when it was originally published.

“For me Wuthering Heights is a story of violent obsession, and a tortuous unfulfilled relationship. This is not a Vaseline-lensed experience,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to elbow out – this idea that it’s the cosy greatest love story ever told. It’s not. The F-words are part of my attempt to shift the production to left field, and to help capture the shock that was associated with the original book when it was published.”

Andrew McCarthy, director of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, said early readers of the novel would have found the book “shocking”.

“Some words were crossed out in the original text because they were too strong,” he said.

He cited an example of words being missed out of the sentence: “No, I was told the curate should have his (blank) teeth shoved down his (blank) throat if he stepped over the threshold”.

“It doesn’t take too much imagination to fill in the blanks,” he said.

There have been several screen adaptations of Wuthering Heights over the years, most notably the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier.

ITV broadcast a version of the drama starring Tom Hardy as dark and brooding Heathcliff and Charlotte Riley as Cathy. In 2008, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he felt a kinship with the anti-hero Heathcliff, adding: “Maybe an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff.”

The new production airs at 8pm on Sunday.

  • Read the full story in Tuesday's T&A