Julia Davis stars as celebrity chef Fanny Cradock

Fear of Fanny sees Nighty Night star Julia Davis playing the top TV chef of the 1960s, Fanny Cradock.

Meanwhile Anna Madeley will star in a biopic of Isabella Beeton, the feisty author of 19th Century best-seller Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.

The channel's new line-up also includes a sitcom from Jack Dee and a season celebrating British science fiction.

One of the highlights of the season is an original drama, Random Quest, based on a John Wyndham short story.

There will also be a series of documentaries on the genre and a science fiction "acting masterclass" delivered by Nigel Planer's comedy character Nicholas Craig.

Human behaviour

An anthropology season will look at the science of studying human behaviour.

In First Contact, presenter Mark Anstice examines the trend for tourist trips to meet some of the world's last uncontacted tribes, and the impact of these excursions.

Sir David Attenborough will also narrate a documentary on the eccentric British anthropologist Tom Harrisson.

Harrisson was the pioneer of the Mass Observation project, which aimed to record the everyday lives of ordinary people of Britain in the first half of the 20th Century.

Among the dramas prepared for BBC Four's new season is Wide Sargasso Sea, written by Jean Rhys in 1966 as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte's classic novel Jane Eyre,

The digital channel will also screen an attempt to stage a performance of Thomas Tallis's Spem In Alium with a thousand-strong choir.

The choral work is widely believed to be one of the most technically difficult pieces of classical music ever written.

BBC Four recently picked up an award for non-terrestrial channel of the year at the Edinburgh International TV Festival.