NO-HEADLINE

Two of Britain's screen heart-throbs are vying to play one of English literature's leading romantic roles in a new costume drama.

Ewan McGregor, who played the heroin-shooting anti-hero in Trainspotting, and Colin Firth, who as Mr Darcy wooed viewers' hearts in the BBC's recent adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, are both shortlisted to play Heathcliff in a new production of Wuthering Heights. London Weekend Television plans to screen the classic 19th-century novel as a two-hour special.

The tale of obsessive love was Emily Bronte's only novel. The idea of such a shocking story of passion being written by a woman caused such a stir when it was published in 1847 that she had to give herself the sexless nom de plume of Ellis Bell.

Wuthering Heights is the latest classic novel to receive TV costume drama treatment. Persuasion, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Emma, Moll Flanders and Middlemarch have all been screened recently. LWT is also showing an adaptation of Jane Eyre this Sunday.