BBC4 is to focus on the Edwardians as part of its winter and spring line-up.

Ex- star Jessie Wallace will play a music-hall legend in Marie Lloyd - Queen of the Music Hall.

BBC4 controller Janice Hadlow said: "It's a real coup to have Jessie Wallace as lead in this exciting new drama - a major component of our Edwardian season. She will bring something very special to the role as the greatest music hall star of all time."

Filming for the Hatrick production starts in February on location in London's East End and Bayswater.

Ian Hislop will present Scouting for Boys, a look at the beginnings of the scouting movement that was founded by military hero Robert Baden-Powell.

Other highlights include an Andrew Davies adaptation of Victorian literary classic The Diary of a Nobody, a programme about Edwardian eating habits, Edwardian Supersize Me. and Gotcha! sees Kelvin MacKenzie's looks at the birth of the tabloid newspaper, which goes back to when the Daily Mail started in 1896.

A mini-season of documentaries will look at about contemporary life in "Middle England", in The Way We Live Now. , and the channel will cover the history of photography, in The Genius of Photography and Archive of the World which looks at colour photographs from the early 20th century.

A series of documentaries about science and postwar British classical music also feature, as well as a programme to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, A Short History Of Racism, as well as a Storyville account of the trial of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

A new comedy Tight Spot, will also showcase four new comedians as characters stuck in very different situations, such as a lift.