Brideshead will be revisited without a bear

From those who remember the classic 1981 serialisation of Brideshead Revisited there will be uproar and recrimination.

Aloysius, the teddy bear that accompanies the doomed aristocrat Sebastian Flyte throughout his student days, is to be axed from Andrew Davies' new serialisation of the Evelyn Waugh novel. The bear, symbolising Sebastian's morbid love for his own childhood, played such a prominent part in Granada's adaptation that scores of imitations subsequently appeared in the quads and cloisters of Oxford. But Davies has declared a desire to distance his Brideshead from its somewhat effete predecessor.

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Sebastian is to be played by the working-class, dark-haired actor Ben Whishaw, in contrast to the young, pretty and blond Anthony Andrews, who captivated Eighties audiences. And yesterday Davies disclosed that the bear has gone.

Davies, who is the author of popular screen adaptations such as the BBC's Pride and Prejudice and Bleak House, said at the Hay-on-Wye book festival: "He's gone completely. There will be no Aloysius. He's out."

Sir John Mortimer, screenwriter of the original series, is not impressed. "Of course, Aloysius is incredibly important, he's a sign of character... It was Sebastian's hallmark."

In contrast to the nostalgia of Mortimer's 1981 series, which also starred Jeremy Irons, Davies wants to shift the focus away from Oxford and focus on the later life of the characters.

He explains: "All anyone remembers is Charles and Sebastian swanning around Oxford and, certainly to Evelyn Waugh, that was not the main part of the book." Davies believes that religion is a far more important focus of the novel, and dismisses the Oxford gallivanting as a distraction from its purpose. "The crux of the book is really Julia Flyte's giving up of Charles for God. It is the religious crisis that the book is working towards."

Davies has already earned a reputation for meddling with classics and turning tame drawing room dramas into bodice-ripping fantasies. It was he who was responsible for transforming Jane Austen's Mr Darcy into a sex symbol with the wet-shirted Colin Firth, in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The 71-year-old has written an even sexier version of Sense and Sensibility, which will begin filming soon. This latest screen version will also include more graphic depictions of sex and violence. But Davies believes his racy interpretation is true to Austen: "The back story, the bit that happens behind the scenes, is about the abduction of an underage girl. She's taken from school, seduced and made pregnant. It's all there in the text."

The prolific screenwriter has also been discussing the idea of a drama based on the modern erotic thriller Sleep With Me by Joanna Briscoe. Davies describes the novel, which charts the sex lives of a middle-class academic couple in and around University College London, where he went to university, as "a very sexy story".