The BBC has unveiled three new commissions for history programmes as part of a strategy to add "more depth and breadth to the schedule" on BBC One.

Prunella Scales, who in addition to her famous role as Sybil Fawlty in the hit sitcom Fawlty Towers, has portrayed Queen Victoria in numerous performances, has donned a prosthetic nose in order to take a leading role in a series entitled Victoria: An Intimate History. The BBC says Scales will "read from Queen Victoria's huge collection of diaries and letters, sometimes in costume and from the locations where they were written." Fawlty Towers co-star Andrew Sachs will play the role of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. In a rather worrying side note to its announcement regarding the commissions, the corporation revealed that "in icy cold weather Prunella's prosthetic nose would sometimes spring open like a draw-bridge."

Onto more serious matters, the corporation will take viewers back to AD79 and the city of Pompeii; "dramatic reconstructions, expert investigations, and lavish CGIs" are all promised to create a "vivid and engaging account" of The Last Day of Pompeii. The story of the city which was showered with copious quantities of ash, smoke and rock will be presented through a cast of characters including "lovers, soldiers, slaves and families."

Colosseum is perhaps the closest commission to a previous BBC production, Pyramid; this new programme follows a central character, Verus, who rises from being a slave to a star gladiator in ancient Rome. Computer graphics and the story-telling drama combine to take "viewers into [Verus'] world, showing how gladiators really fought and trained and how the greatest amphitheatre of all was built," the BBC said.