Vegas set to show us his Bottom

Former EastEnder Charlie Brooks and foul-mouthed comic Johnny Vegas are two of the unlikely stars of major new classic dramas on BBC1.

Brooks - best known as the soap's stroppy Janine - appears in an £8 million reworking of Dickens's Bleak House, alongside Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance and Liza Tarbuck.

Vegas features as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream set in a holiday park - one of four modern dramas based on Shakespeare's plays.

Much Ado About Nothing is moved to a regional TV newsroom and stars Billie Piper, Sarah Parish and Damian Lewis, while Macbeth is transported to the kitchen of a restaurant and The Taming Of The Shrew to the world of parliamentary politics.

Period drama The Virgin Queen stars Shameless actress Anne-Marie Duff as Elizabeth I, in a "powerful" chronicle of her extraordinary life story.

The dramas are part of the autumn season on BBC1, which also features ambitious documentaries on God, Ancient Egypt and the history of mathematics.

The schedule will be unveiled today by controller Peter Fincham, who took over the post in May and is expected to hail the " dumbedup" season as a taste of the future.

Other highlights include David Attenborough's exploration of the invertebrate world in Life In The Undergrowth, and Egypt, the story of its 19th-century adventurers and archaeologists.

Professor Robert Winston fronts a series about the quest for religion in The Story of God and in The Story of One, former Python Terry Jones explores the history of mathematics.

BBC bosses have come under fire for screening too many repeats and reality shows. An extra £5 million has been ploughed into a schedule costing £226million. The bulk has gone into drama, where in previous years there has been only one major new series and a handful of continuing serials.