SWINDON star Billie Piper has been putting her New Year woes behind her with a romantic sunshine break in the Indian Ocean with husband Chris Evans.

On New Year's Day former Bradon Forest School pupil Billie, 21, discovered that one of her early singles, Because We Want To, was voted one of the worst singles of all time.

But her acting career is taking off. After winning rave reviews for her part in the Canterbury Tales on BBC1 last year she is set to star in a new gritty BBC drama next month.

She first hit the headlines as a singer. Her 1998 debut song, taken from her platinum-selling album Honey To The B, was voted the seventh worst pop record of all time in the Channel 4 poll.

Unfortunately it now ranks alongside Agadoo by Black Lace, Orville's Song by Keith Harris and Orville, and My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion as one of the most forgettable ever to have entered the charts.

But that didn't seem to bother the singer-turned-actress one little bit as she spent the turn of the year on a sunkissed beach with her 37-year-old millionaire former television presenter husband.

While Billie enjoyed splashing around in the sea in a bikini, Evans sat on a sunlounger reading a book.

When Billie married Evans in a 'quickie' wedding at a chapel in Las Vegas three years ago, critics wrongly said it would not last.

Last year Billie made her acting debut in The Miller's Tale, a BBC version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

The programme attracted attention before the broadcast mainly because of a love scene with Cold Feet actor James Nesbitt, but afterwards critics were almost united in their praise for Billie's acting ability.

In her new role she is to play Bella, a troubled teenager, who grows up in a care home.

She is to star alongside Jane Lapotaire in the drama, as yet untitled.