MICK Jagger’s former wife Jerry Hall is to star in her first major TV role in a BBC2 dramatisation of Martin Amis’s classic novel Money

Hall, 53, will play the wife of the lead character, John Self, a British director of commercials in the 1980s tale of amorality, excess and greed.

The Texan-born actress and former model whose nine year marriage to the Rolling Stone was annulled 10 years ago after his affair with model Luciana Gimenez became public will play opposite Nick Frost as Self.

Hall has performed in London’s West End in The Graduate and Calendar Girls and will also star alongisde Vincent Kartheiser of Mad Men and Little Dorrit's Emma Pierson as Self's girlfriend Selina in Money.

Frost will portray Self as the director thrust into the world of New York movie deals, shark deals and impossibly petulant actors.

The announcement was the biggest surprise at the launch of BBC2’s autumin line-up.

Kate Harwood, head of series and serials, said: "Although set in the Eighties, Money is an incredibly timely drama, satirising the pitfalls of the dedicated pursuit of wealth in a brilliantly dark and comic way.

"We're delighted to be adapting a novel from one of the greatest living authors of our time and to have such a fantastic cast to bring it to life."

The hour-long episodes, written by Tom Butterworth and Chris Hurford and directed by Jeremy Lovering of Spooks, have been announced as part of the new season on BBC2.

Among the programmes scheduled for winter and spring 2010 are a cookery show presented by the model turned author Sophie Dahl and a documentary about Barack Obama marking the first anniversary of the president's inauguration.

The channel will also screen a new drama - Royal Wedding - by Bafta award-winning writer Abi Morgan telling the story of a small Welsh village uniting at the time of Prince Charles's marriage to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 which offers them the chance to forget some of their own problems.

Meanwhile, Alfred Molina and Dawn French come together to star in Roger and Val Have Just Got In - a comedy focusing on the lives of a middle-aged couple in the first half-hour after they arrive home from work.

Viewers will also see the former Fast Show stars Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson reunite for their first TV show in 10 years with Bellamy's People - an adaptation of BBC Radio 4's spoof phone-in Down The Line.

New documentaries include Generation Jihad, Muslim Driving School and Inside John Lewis.

There will also be an Elvis Night on the channel which will include Elvis By The Presleys Uncut, a home movie portrait of Elvis by his nearest and dearest, and a new documentary looking at what Elvis did for Las Vegas.

BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow said the latest season's line-up was "BBC 2 at its best" and "goes to the heart of what the channel is about."

"We've got a great line-up for the new year. From major series on Britain's past and present and the wider world including the solar system to a remarkable film tracking Obama's election campaign, drama set in the Eighties and smart new comedy, BBC Two will be offering rewarding television across all genres," she said.

"This season is BBC Two at its best. It goes to the heart of what the channel is about - intelligent, diverse television that talks in different voices to different people about the world they live in.

"It's a contemporary view of the world, reflecting a curiosity about who we are, how we got here and I think viewers will get real pleasure and value from the rich range of programmes we have lined up for them."

The channel will also screen a televised foray into the British novel with best-selling author Sebastian Faulks.

And Gareth Malone, presenter of The Choir, will front Gareth Goes to Glyndebourne, while Paul Roseby, the artistic director of the National Youth Theatre, will bring two groups of very different school children together to perform a classic Shakespeare play.

Ahead of this, the long-awaited adaptation of Hamlet, starring David Tennant, will also be screened on BBC2.