Oliver Twist to be adapted into 'sexy, contemporary' female-driven show

It's far from the first classic narrative to be updated with a procedural TV show - in what's proven to be a bizarre new trend

"What's missing from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, that classic tale of impoverished orphanhood?"

"Sexy crime-solving," replied no one, except the minds behind NBC's latest procedural series Twist. The Hollywood Reporter reveals the network has secured a pilot-script deal for the show; which promises a "contemporary, sexy" twist on the 19th-century novel where an orphan is sold from his workhouse life into an apprenticeship with an undertaker, before escaping and falling in with a crowd of London pickpockets.

This modern, sexy take will also alter the gender of its lead, focusing on a twenty-something woman who, "finally finds a true sense of family in a strange group of talented outcasts who use their unique skills to take down wealthy criminals."

Which altogether sounds utterly bizarre, though the project does have the backing of mega-producer Joel Silver (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, The Matrix); it's also not entirely surprising, with classics-turned-procedurals becoming something a strange TV trend of late.

Coming off the back of Fox's successful Sleepy Hollow series - in which Ichabod Crane wakes up in modern-day upstate New York and teams up with a detective to stop the Headless Horseman - the network has just commissioned Camelot, itself a modern-day procedural version of the tale of King Arthur.

Who knows where else this trend may lead us.