Victoria Wood is to make her first drama for ITV for more than 25 years.

The comic will write and star in the two-hour film Housewife 49, about a woman whose miserable life is radically improved through her involvement in the women's volunteer service during the Second World War.

She is finishing off a final draft of the script, according to MediaGuardian, with shooting is expected to begin in the summer.

Securing Wood is a coup for ITV, as she has spent most of her career with the BBC. Her last major drama for ITV was a play called Nearly A Happy Ending, which aired in 1980.

Wood is believed to have got the idea for the new film when she came across a set of real-life diaries.