Actress Lindsay Duncan has been confirmed to play Margaret Thatcher in a BBC2 drama about the former prime minister.

The new programme, titled Margaret, will follow the Conservative leader's final days in office and the betrayal by her male Cabinet colleagues in 1990.

The Scottish star's screen credits include a lead role in the racy 2005 series Rome, in which she played Julius Caesar's former lover Servilia.

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Leading lady: Lindsay Duncan has signed on to star as Margaret Thatcher in the upcoming BBC2 drama

The drama is loosely based on John Campbell's two-volume biography of Mrs Thatcher published in 2000 and 2003.

Writer Richard Cottan was behind the controversial Men Only on Channel 4, with depictions of explicit sex, drug-taking and a vicious gang-rape, which aired in 2001.

Another Thatcher drama was due to air on BBC4 in February but has been delayed until June.

Programmers were forced to drop a scene from The Long Road to Finchley, by Tony Saint and starring Andrea Riseborough, which showed the former Premier using the F-word after her supporters insisted she never used such language.

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Bella: the actress played Julius Caesar's former lover Servilia in the 2005 series Rome

Robert Cooper, the Great Meadow Productions co-founder said: "Whilst The Long Walk To Finchley puts Margaret Thatcher's character traits to comedic effect as she puts her first, youthful foot on the ladder to power, Margaret is a much darker examination of the final days of Margaret Thatcher's reign and a compelling look into what 11 years of power did to her."

Filming is scheduled to be begin this summer.

Racy: Lindsay Duncan (right) shares a lesbian kiss with her costar Kerry Condon in Rome