BBC reveal two new dramas

Atonement actor Gina McKee and Jeremy Northam, who was last seen in The Tudors, have signed up for BBC1's hard-hitting drama about a family torn apart when the husband downloads child pornography. Fiona's Story, which has echoes of the case involving The Thick of It actor Chris Langham, is based on "extensive research", according to the BBC.

McKee, who has also appeared in The Street and Tsunami, will play a mother who battles to keep her family together after her husband, played by Northam, who also starred in Gosford Park, is accused of downloading indecent images of children. The 90-minute one-off programme, being made by BBC Scotland, has been written by the newcomer Kate Gabriel. Fiona's Story will be produced by He Kills Coppers' David Boulter and executive produced by Matthew Read.

Filming begins today in Glasgow for four weeks, with broadcast expected at the end of the year or early 2009. Anne Mensah, the head of drama for BBC Scotland, said: "Fiona's Story is an amazing piece of writing. It has an emotional intensity at its heart which captivates everyone who reads the script." Boulter added: "Fiona's Story is the heartbreaking tale of a marriage breaking down. Its power lies in writer Kate Gabriel's original voice, which has attracted top-level talent across the board."

Langham served three months in prison last year after being found guilty of 15 counts of downloading indecent images of children.

Elsewhere, the BBC has confirmed that it is also developing a biographical drama based on the life of the legendary Daily Mirror journalist Marje Proops. The as-yet-uncast drama is likely to be aired on BBC4 if it gets the green light and is understood to be an in-house BBC drama production.

Proops' own autobiography, her 1975 book Pride, Prejudice and Proops (Time Remembered), is likely to provide source material for the script, which is still in development. The drama is also expected to rely on information contained in Angela Patmore's 1992 biography of the journalist, which claimed that she had a long-standing love affair while married to Sidney Proops.

Proops became a journalist in 1939 and joined the Daily Mirror as a fashion journalist. She later became famous for writing the Dear Marje advice column for the paper, which was accompanied by a trademark photograph of her clenching a pen between her teeth. She was made an OBE in 1969 and continued writing her Mirror column until her death at the age of 85.

The development of the drama follows a successful run of one-off autobiographical dramas on BBC4. BBC4's biopics, which aired in a season called The Curse of Comedy, examined the lives of figures including the entertainer Hughie Green, who was played by Trevor Eve, and another about Tony Hancock, who was played by Ken Stott. Another about comedian Frankie Howerd starred David Walliams as the comedy actor, while a fourth examined the troubled relationship between Steptoe and Son actors Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell, who were played by Jason Isaacs and Phil Davis respectively.

A BBC spokeswoman confirmed that the Marje Proops project was in development.