Former Doctor Who stars Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston are among the BBC's new drama line-up. Billie will star in Kay Mellor's A Passionate Woman, a BBC One drama about the two stages in the life of Betty, a wife and mother who falls deeply in love with a Polish neighbour with disastrous consequences. The Royle Family's Sue Johnston also stars. And former Time Lord Christopher Eccleston will take on the role of John Lennon in BBC Four's Lennon Naked, which follows Lennon's transition from a Beatle and also explores his relationship with Yoko Ono. A Passionate Woman and Lennon Naked are just two of the highlights of the BBC's new winter/spring drama season. Others include The Wire actor Idris Elba starring in new BBC One police drama Luther, in which the murderer's identity is known from the start. BBC One will also show The Deep, a five-part thriller set thousands of feet below the Arctic ice. James Nesbitt, Minnie Driver and ER heart-throb Goran Visnjic will star in the story, which follows the crew of a submarine as they search the final frontiers of Earth for unknown life forms. BBC Two will run a season dedicated to the 1980s, which will see Martin Amis's novel Money, the darkly comic tale of greed and excess, brought to TV screens, starring Hot Fuzz actor Nick Frost. It will also feature a drama titled Royal Wedding, about life in a Welsh village set against the backdrop of the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.
