Matt Smith to play Christopher Isherwood

Matt Smith is to play the novelist Christopher Isherwood in a new drama for BBC Two.

Titled Christopher and his Kind, the drama is based on the memoir of the same name, written by Isherwood in 1976. It covers the ten years in the writer's life-from 1929 to 1939, when he left England for Berlin, the capital of the young Weimar Republic, drawn by its reputation for sexual freedom. It talks about the gay Berlin of the 1930s and Isherwood's struggles to save his companion, a German man named Heinz, from the Nazis. Isherwood's experiences in the city later inspired him to write his 1939 novella Goodbye to Berlin on which the Broadway musical Cabaret was based.

The drama will also star Lindsay Duncan, who played Adelaide Brooke in The Waters of Mars, as Isherwood's mother. It will be directed by Geoffrey Sax, who directed the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.

The drama is written by acclaimed playwright Kevin Elyot (My Night With Reg) and produced by Celia Duval for Mammoth Screen.

Filming on Christopher and his Kind starts in May. The 90-minute drama is likely to screen on BBC Two in the autumn.