Brideshead Revisited is being, well, revisited. A film version has apparently upset fans of Evelyn Waugh’s novel because it features a scene in which all the main characters – Charles Ryder, Sebastian Flyte and Julia Flyte – go to Venice. In the book this does not happen. Only Charles and Sebastian visit Venice, although I suppose Julia might have gone for a long weekend when Waugh wasn’t looking.

It was also reported last week that Hollywood is planning a production of A Tale of Two Cities in which Sydney Carton survives. You may remember Sydney: it was a far, far better thing that he did than he had ever done before. In the book he says this and gets his head chopped off. In the film he is rescued at the last minute, possibly by Spider-Man or the A-Team, and escapes in a hot-air balloon with his secret lover.

Should we care if films are not entirely true to the original books? Bring it on, that’s what I say. Just because Charles Dickens had no idea what the modern cinema audience requires, the modern cinema audience not having been invented in the mid-19th century, it doesn’t mean that today’s directors can’t go that extra mile.

There are many books that could be turned into Hollywood blockbusters if only somebody were prepared to ignore literary opinion and tinker with the plots. I am that somebody. If any film agents are reading this, here are my pitches.

The Canterbury Tales (needs more sex and death) It has been a tough year for the Man of Law as he keeps order on the mean streets of medieval London. Desperate for a break, he joins a party of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. But soon he is plunged into his most sinister case yet, when the body of a nun’s priest is found at the Tabard Inn, Southwark (in the luxurious April Room, with its en suite showers).

It looks an open-and-shut case. The Summoner has been heard threatening the Nun’s Priest during a ferocious row over who gets to sleep next door to the Wife of Bath. But then the Summoner is cudgelled to death, followed by the Knight, the Reeve and the Miller.

The case is solved when the Man of Law, accompanied by his old friend Inspector Chaucer, gathers the pilgrims together in the drawing room of the Tabard. Sensationally, Inspector Chaucer is unmasked as the killer. With a film version of the trip in mind, he has been butchering the pilgrims in order to replace them with a more glamorous cast (The Reality TV Presenter’s Tale, The Interior Designer’s Tale, The Merchant Banker’s Tale).

Bleak House (too bleak) The Jarndyce family just don’t know what to do with Bleak House, the family’s ancestral home in Hertfordshire. So they’ve called in a combined assault from television’s Changing Rooms and Ground Force. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Alan Titchmarsh and the rest of the team have just 24 hours to turn this Dickensian pile into a modern country residence.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (too depressing) Ivan Denisovich Shukhov wakes up one morning to the stark reality that he is still imprisoned in a Siberian gulag. Life is tough but what keeps him going is the dream that he will one day write a hit musical.

He reveals this ambition to a fellow prisoner, Captain Buinovsky. “What’s stopping you, Comrade Ivan?” says Buinovsky, gazing across at the bleak Siberian landscape. Then he has an idea that will change Ivan’s life: “Why don’t we put on the show right here?”

Before Ivan can respond, a chorus of prisoners is tap-dancing across the exercise yard to the first big number. As they leapfrog over their guards, dressed in glittering taffeta uniforms, they sing: “Get out those red, white and blue flags, We’re lovin’ it here in the gulags. The accommodation is far from inferior, Even though we’re locked up in Siberia.

The company’s great if you’re happy to mix in, So hats off to Comrade Alexander Solzhenitsyn.”

Crime and Punishment (too much crime) Raskolnikov, a student who is down on his luck and desperate, plans to murder a grasping old moneylender. So far, so good.

Say what you like about Dostoevsky, but he knew how to set a scene. Does the whole book have to be so dark and gloomy, though? Wouldn’t it be better with a touch of Merchant-Ivory magic?

What if, on his way to murder the old woman, Raskolnikov bumps into Miss Lucy Honeychurch (played by Helena Bonham Carter)? Miss Honeychurch is visiting the churches of St Petersburg with her cousin, Miss Bartlett.

Sharing an interest in icons, Raskolnikov and the two young women fall into conversation and he learns that they have been let down by their hotel.

He offers Miss Honeychurch the use of his lodging – “just a poor hovel, but it has a view”.

“Oh,” says Miss Bartlett. “A view.”

Enchanted by his encounter, Raskolnikov decides that he will not bludgeon the old woman to death after all, but will follow Miss Honeychurch to Surrey and live a life of postEdwardian ease.

Jeremy Clarkson is away

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