Does a new take on old tales rob them of their meaning?

Answer: They have all been given a makeover and become part of a growing trend to make classic stories accessible to a new, younger generation.

A couple of years ago Postman Pat was updated to make him a bit more 21st-century. The revamped character swapped his village post office for a sorting office and found as well as his red van he also had helicopters and parachutes at his disposal to make all kinds of "special deliveries". Perhaps not surprisingly this James Bond-style makeover didn't prove popular with everyone.

The world's most famous fictional postman isn't alone in being given the hi-tech equivalent of a scrub and brush up. Everyone from Sherlock Holmes to Winnie-the-Pooh have been updated for modern audiences. But should classic tales be updated to suit changing times?

When it comes to modern makeovers Shakespeare has long been the subject of fierce debate between those who want to experiment with his plays and those who believe the Bard's work should be left to speak for itself.

Certainly the doublet and hose brigade were incensed when the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) revealed it was giving Romeo and Juliet a modern twist by adapting it on the social networking site Twitter. Entitled Such Tweet Sorrow, the play involves six actors improvising a story set in modern Britain, loosely based on Shakespeare's classic romance.

Explaining the RSC's involvement in the project, artistic director Michael Boyd said: "Our ambition is always to connect people with Shakespeare and bring actors and audiences closer together. Mobile phones don't need to be the antichrist for theatre. This digital experiment allows our actors to use mobiles to tell their stories in real time and reach people wherever they are in a global theatre." It appears to have divided opinion with some saying it's helping to bring Shakespeare's work to an audience it would never have otherwise reached, while others dismiss the improvised story as a travesty of the English language.

Sleeping Beauty is another classic tale that's been brought up to date in Julie Parrish's new book Waking Beauty, in which the fairy tale princess wakes up in a north London world of gritty council estates and shopping malls where her prince is in trouble with the police.

Parrish, a former TV news reporter and presenter, says she wanted to make the story relevant to the iPod generation for whom Myspace and Facebook are part of their everyday life.

"Do girls of 10, 11, and 12 really still believe in a happy ending? I think so," she says. "However, what was clear among girls who read my book was that they're also plugged into a mid-Atlantic rhythm of speech in which there are sharp one-liners, a lot of indignation and minor dramas along the way."

But by rehashing old favourites aren't we just admitting that we've run out of decent story ideas? Lesley Jeffries, Professor of English Language at Huddersfield University, doesn't think so. "Stories aren't sacred, the best ones are timeless and by bringing traditional fairytales up to date and re-telling them using modern language it means the next generation can enjoy them as well," she says.

"People are very fond of the stories they grew up with when they were young and then read to their children. But a decent writer should be able to take a classic story and create a good modern version, it only becomes an issue when someone makes a mess of it.

"Angela Carter was famous for her feminist take on fairy stories which were brilliant and Philip Pullman has just re-written the Bible story, which is also fascinating. It stays close to the Bible but then he tweaks bits and pieces to show how myths can grow."

Prof Jeffries suggests that by their very nature stories are bound to be repeated.

"There are only a certain number of basic stories you can have. It's not that you can't be creative with language, but in terms of storytelling there is a limit to what you can do.

"Artists of all kinds draw on each other's work and no one creates a piece of work that's not influenced by something that has gone before."