SWINDON actress Billie Piper is set to star in a TV drama which culminates in a steamy bedroom scene.

The former Bradon Forest School, Purton, pupil, 21, plays Bella, a bright young thing in a south London children's home.

The one-off drama, called Bella And The Boys, is part of the BBC's new season Taking Care, which explores the lives of children in care.

Bella grows up with two male friends, charismatic, wild Lee and solid, dependable Martin.

They are hanging out, having fun and confiding in each other until Martin discovers Lee and Bella in bed together.

Speaking of her latest role, Billie loved the experience.

She said: "By the end of our rehearsal period I felt hugely affected by the person I'd become and the relationships I'd formed.

"The whole project was just so brilliant and gave us all the opportunity to get a real insight into what it's like being in care."

In this latest role, due to be screened next month, Billie's bedfellow is played by Tom Burke.

Tom graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in London, in 2002. He has starred in the TV drama Dangerfield and most recently PoW, a drama series about a group of British soldiers plotting their escape from a Nazi prison camp.

Mrs Rogers, the manager of the children's home in Bella and the Boys, is played by classical actress Jane Lapotaire,

The drama then leaps 13 years into the future, when Martin returns to the home for a reunion, hoping to meet up with Bella and Lee. But much has happened in the intervening years.

This is not the first time Billie, who shot to fame at the age of 15 as a pop singer with her number one hit Because We Want To, has been seen nude on screen.

She recently stripped off with Cold Feet actor James Nesbitt in a raunchy love scene for the TV dramatisation of Chaucer's A Miller's Tale.

Billie played Alison, a wannabe karaoke star married to an older man, Dennis Waterman, in the modern take on the Canterbury Tales.

In April Billie is due to share the screen with heart-throb Orlando Bloom, star of Pirates Of The Caribbean and the Lord Of The Rings films, in the movie production The Calcium Kid.

Described as a comedy "mockumentary", the film tells the story of milkman and amateur boxer Jimmy (Bloom) who gets the chance to fight the world champion in his home town.

In the film Billie plays Jimmy's wife Angel.

In real life she is married to DJ and TV presenter Chris Evans, 37. They have just returned from a romantic break in the Indian Ocean, where they have been seen kissing in the sunshine.

Victoria Tagg