THE Americans are at it again – taking classic English literature and adapting it to suit their own purposes.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of the Land of the Free and it’s readiness to answer the call whenever democracy is under threat (especially when oil is involved). The outcome of the Second World War and the Cold War that followed would have been totally different if America hadn’t joined the fight.

So Europe, whether its people and political leaders like it or not, is for ever in America’s debt.

The problem I have with the Yanks is their rather annoying habit of never letting the truth get in the way of a good story. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in Hollywood. The American film industry, trading as it does in escapism, dreams and fantasies, has always played lip service to reality.

And Hollywood is not the only culprit. Scriptwriters and directors the world over since the days of the silent movies have taken well-known stories and events from history, real life and literature, and adapted them for the silver screen.

Therein lies the problem: the art of the adaption and the universal get-out clause used by movie makers and television producers to state that while a film or programme is based on a ‘true’ story, certain facts and characters have been changed.

Due to the poetic licence of the movie industry, generations have grown up under many misapprehensions, such as that Robin Hood and his merry men wore green tights and John Wayne won the war single-handed, having centuries earlier led the Mongol hordes into battle.

Those examples could be interpreted as rash generalisatons, dear reader, but you get my drift.

The movies have also fostered the notion that the world is divided into two camps – goodies and baddies – and that good will always triumph over evil if the cause is just.

That notion has also underpinned American foreign policy since 1917, with the exception of the isolationism of the inter-world war years.

Hollywood scriptwriters have rewritten more novels and real events than the number of times the lion has roared at the start of MGM films since the studio was founded in 1924. The same can also be said of television programmes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Admittedly, there is no way an entire book, battle or war can be condensed into a couple of hours without whole chunks being left out. It took the Russians almost eight hours to adapt Leo Tolstoy’s historical chronicle War and Peace into four parts for the cinema, a marathon beyond the attention span of the average movie fan.

The latest in a long line of beloved literary characters to get the Hollywood makeover is the quintessential English amateur sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. But this most charming of characters to come from the pen of Agatha Christie is not just getting any old makeover; she is, like so many before her, being Disneyfied.

The elderly spinster from the village of St Mary Mead has been reincarnated for the large and small screens in the UK and America by many fine actresses, including Margaret Rutherford, Angela Lansbury, Joan Hickson, Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie. All ladies of a certain age and all suited by appearance to playing the role as envisaged by the author.

In the latest example of the Disneyfication of British culture, there is no part for a character actress or the traditional tweed suit and sensible shoes. Miss Marple is to undergo a glamorous transformation from aged spinster of the parish to a voluptuous contemporary American heroine befitting the 21st century and the ever-so-perfect Disney take on the world.

In remaking the classic BBC television series starring Joan Hickson in the title role which ran from 1984 to 1992, the creators of Mickey Mouse have cast American actress Jennifer Garner (38) as Miss Marple. Or, as the ever-so-polite and correct Miss Marple (70s) would address her, Mrs Ben Affleck.

Since this bizarre choice was announced in the spring, the special relationship between the UK and America has come under increased pressure. Hollywood may have an annoying penchant of rewriting history, but we should not bleat too loudly, as we are no angels in that department ourselves – but no one messes with our Miss Marple!

How ironic that so many British heroes and heroines are fictional, living their lives in the pages of the much-loved books that provided the escapism now delivered by the moving image on a cinema screen or the confines of a television.

Characters like Miss Marple are our cultural icons just as Mickey Mouse is to the Americans. No matter on which side of the Atlantic you live, fictional characters are part and parcel of who you are and what you believe. They also define national characteristics.

The essential appeal of Miss Marple and her literary ilk is that they are encapsulated for ever in their time, in a safe country where nothing ever changes and which we can visit time and time again for reassurance in an ever-changing and uncertain world.

The failure to appreciate that is a cultural divide far wider than the ocean that separates our countries.

If Disney wants to make a serial about an amateur female detective solving crimes in some rural backwater, then fine. Just don’t pretend it has anything whatsoever to do with Agatha Christie’s wonderful Miss Marple. What next – Jim Begerac solving crimes in New Jersey for the Federal Bureau of Strangers?