'Tipping the Velvet' writer plans Lady Chatterley trial drama

Andrew Davies, the screenwriter of last year's controversial lesbian costume drama Tipping the Velvet, is planning a dramatisation of the obscenity trial that surrounded the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Davies and the producer Julie Gardner, who adapted Othello for ITV1 in 2001, are working together again on the project, which focuses on an affair between two jurors in the 1960 trial. The idea, according to Davies, is that the pair were swept away by D H Lawrence's erotic novel after the jury were directed to read it by the trial judge.

He has approached ITV about the drama and a spokesman for Davies said if it was commissioned he would start work on the script later this year.

Davies is one of television's most prolific writers and his skill at promoting the content of Tipping the Velvet helped the BBC2 drama to attract an audience of nearly five million in October, more than double the channel's normal audience. He described the drama as "absolutely filthy" and encouraged "lads' mags" readers to tune in.

Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned when it first appeared in 1928 and Penguin Books was prosecuted when it published the novel in May 1960. The publisher was found not guilty after a five-day trial and went on to sell two million copies within a year.