Liz Carr is to be the subject of a future edition of genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?

Carr is best known these days as a regular cast member of crime drama Silent Witness, playing Clarissa Mullery, but she is also an long-time comedian who worked regularly on the circuit and as a member of sketch group Abnormally Funny People.

She has used a wheelchair since the age of seven owing to arthrogryposis multiplex congenita.

The announcement was made by the BBC along with a number of other programme announcement to mark International Day of People with Disabilities. Also announced was a new series of the Tim Renkow comedy Jerk. And Last Leg co-presenter Alex Brooker will be exploring what disability means to him in a special one-off documentary.

There will also be a drama, But When We Dance, about two people with lots in common - a great sense of humour, a love of dance, and Parkinson’s, written by comedy writer Paul Mayhew-Archer, who says: "People with Parkinson’s are also funny and loving and irrepressibly optimistic, and I know this because I‘m one of them. When I was first diagnosed, my neurologist, who is a lovely man, told me: ‘You seem to find it quite hard to smile’. Well, I thought, maybe that’s because you’ve just told me I have Parkinson’s."

The broadcaster aims to create new opportunities, see more disabled people working on some of the BBC’s biggest programmes, and help disabled staff to move around and up the BBC more easily.