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Matthew Charles Berry is an English actor, comedian, musician, and writer. He is best known for his roles in comedy series such as The IT Crowd, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, The Mighty Boosh, Snuff Box, What We Do in the Shadows, and Toast of London, the last of which he also co-created. The series earned him the 2015 BAFTA Award for Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme. As a musician, he has released nine studio albums.Toast of London- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
David Jason was born in Edmonton, London, in 1940. He has become one of Britain's most famous, versatile and respected actors, who is most famous for his role in Only Fools and Horses (1981) as Del Boy. He made his debut in the series in 1981 and was still playing the same role up to the Christmas special in 2002. His big break came in the 1967 children's comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) starring alongside members of the Monty Python team: Terry Jones; Eric Idle, and Michael Palin.
Sadly, in 1990, he spent time away from work to nurse Myfanwy Talog, the Welsh actress who was his long time partner, before she died of cancer at the age of 49. He has come a long way from his days as an electrician and has won numerous awards for his work. He has managed to combine the comedy aspect of his career with rather more serious roles, such as that of Jack Frost in the highly-rated detective series A Touch of Frost (1992) and has proved that he is a man of many talents. In the mid 1970s, he performed as Blanco, an elderly prisoner, in episodes of Porridge (1974) with Ronnie Barker. He has also done voice work in children's TV.
He has not really concentrated on films, although he was very impressive in the TV film All the King's Men (1999), playing Frank Beck, the Commander of the Sandringham Company who mysteriously disappeared whilst in action in The Great War campaign in Gallipoli in 1915.
He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, Gill Hinchcliffe and their daughter, Sophie Mae, who was born in 2001. His hobbies are a little DIY and gardening. He was knighted in 2005, becoming Sir David Jason.Only Fools and Horses, Open All Hours- Actor
- Soundtrack
Nicholas Lyndhurst was born on 20 April 1961 in Emsworth, Hampshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Only Fools and Horses (1981), Goodnight Sweetheart (1993) and Rock & Chips (2010). He has been married to Lucy Smith since 1 September 1999. They have one child.Only Fools and Horses, Goodnight Sweetheart, Butterflies, The Two Of Us, The Piglet Files- Actor
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- Producer
John Cleese was born on October 27, 1939, in Weston-Super-Mare, England, to Muriel Evelyn (Cross) and Reginald Francis Cleese. He was born into a family of modest means, his father being an insurance salesman; but he was nonetheless sent off to private schools to obtain a good education. Here he was often tormented for his height, having reached a height of six feet by the age of twelve, and eventually discovered that being humorous could deflect aggressive behavior in others. He loved humor in and of itself, collected jokes, and, like many young Britons who would grow up to be comedians, was devoted to the radio comedy show, "The Goon Show," starring the legendary Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, and Harry Secombe.
Cleese did well in both sports and academics, but his real love was comedy. He attended Cambridge to read (study) Law, but devoted a great deal of time to the university's legendary Footlights group, writing and performing in comedy reviews, often in collaboration with future fellow Python Graham Chapman. Several of these comedy reviews met with great success, including one in particular which toured under the name "Cambridge Circus." When Cleese graduated, he went on to write for the BBC, then rejoined Cambridge Circus in 1964, which toured New Zealand and America. He remained in America after leaving Cambridge Circus, performing and doing a little journalism, and here met Terry Gilliam, another future Python.
Returning to England, he began appearing in a BBC radio series, "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again", based on Cambridge Circus. It ran for several years and also starred future Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. He also appeared, briefly, with Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman in At Last the 1948 Show (1967), for television, and a series of collaborations with some of the finest comedy-writing talent in England at the time, some of whom - Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Chapman - eventually joined him in Monty Python. These programs included The Frost Report (1966) and Marty Feldman's program Marty (1968). Eventually, however, the writers were themselves collected to be the talent for their own program, Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), which displayed a strange and completely absorbing blend of low farce and high-concept absurdist humor, and remains influential to this day.
After three seasons of the intensity of Monty Python, Cleese left the show, though he collaborated with one or more of the other Pythons for decades to come, including the Python movies released in the mid-70s to early 80s - Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982), and The Meaning of Life (1983). Cleese and then-wife Connie Booth collaborated in the legendary television series Fawlty Towers (1975), as the sharp-tongued, rude, bumbling yet somehow lovable proprietor of an English seaside hotel. Cleese based this character on a proprietor he had met while staying with the other Pythons at a hotel in Torquay, England. Only a dozen episodes were made, but each is truly hilarious, and he is still closely associated with the program to this day.
Meanwhile Cleese had established a production company, Video Arts, for clever business training videos in which he generally starred, which were and continue to be enormously successful in the English-speaking world. He continues to act prolifically in movies, including in the hit comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), in the Harry Potter series, and in the James Bond series as the new Q, starting with The World Is Not Enough (1999), in which he began as R before graduating to Q. Cleese also supplies his voice to numerous animated and video projects, and frequently does commercials.
Besides the infamous Basil Fawlty character, Cleese's other well-known trademark is his rendition of an English upper-class toff. He has a daughter with Connie Booth and a daughter with his second wife, Barbara Trentham.
Education and learning are important elements of his life - he was Rector of the University of Saint Andrews from 1973 until 1976, and continues to be a professor-at-large of Cornell University in New York. Cleese lives in Santa Barbara, California.Fawlty Towers- Actor
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Andrew Sachs born Andreas Siegfried Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, he and his family emigrated to London in 1938, to escape persecution under the Nazis. He made his name on British television and rose to fame in the 1970s for his portrayals of the comical Spanish waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers (1975), a role for which he was BAFTA nominated.
He went on to have a long career in acting and voice-over work for television, film and radio. In his later years, he continued to have success with roles in films such as Quartet, and as Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street.
Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Katharina (née Schrott-Fiecht), a librarian, and Hans Emil Sachs, an insurance broker. His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic, and of half-Austrian descent. He left with his parents for Britain in 1938, when he was eight years old, to escape the Nazis. They settled in north London, and he lived in Kilburn for the rest of his life.
In 1960, Sachs married Melody Lang, who appeared in one episode of Fawlty Towers, "Basil the Rat", as Mrs. Taylor. He adopted her two sons from a previous marriage, John Sachs and William Sachs, and they had one daughter, Kate Sachs.
In the late 1950s, whilst still studying shipping management at college, Sachs worked on radio productions, including Private Dreams and Public Nightmares by Frederick Bradnum, an early experimental programme made by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Sachs began in acting with repertory theatre and made his West End debut as Grobchick in the 1958 production of the Whitehall farce Simple Spymen. He made his screen debut in 1959 in the film The Night We Dropped a Clanger. He then appeared in numerous television series throughout the 1960s, including some appearances in ITC productions such as The Saint (1962) and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969).
Sachs is best known for his role as Manuel, the Spanish waiter in the sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979). During the shooting of the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans", Sachs was left with second degree acid burns due to a fire stunt. He was hit with a faulty prop on the set of the show by John Cleese and suffered a massive headache.
Sachs recorded four singles in character as Manuel; the first was "Manuel's Good Food Guide" in 1977, which came in a picture sleeve with Manuel on the cover. Sachs also had a hand in writing (or adapting) the lyrics. This was followed in 1979 by "O Cheryl" with "Ode to England" on the B side. This was recorded under the name "Manuel and Los Por Favors". Sachs shares the writing credits for the B side with "B. Wade", who also wrote the A side.
In 1981, "Manuel" released a cover version of Joe Dolce's number one in the United Kingdom "Shaddap You Face", with "Waiter, there's a Flea in my Soup" on the B side. Sachs also adapted "Shaddap You Face" into Spanish, but was prevented from releasing it before Dolce's version by a court injunction. When finally released it reached 138 in the UK Chart.
In 2007, the BBC broadcast an adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency with Sachs portraying Reg (Professor Urban Chronotis, the Regius Professor of Chronology). He would later appear in another Adams adaptation as the Book in the live tour of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy during its run at Bromley's Churchill Theatre.
On 17 November 2008, it was announced that Sachs had been approached to appear in ITV soap Coronation Street. He later confirmed on 14 December that he was taking up the offer, saying, "I'm taking Street challenge". In May 2009 he made his debut on the street as Norris' brother, Ramsay. He appeared in 27 episodes and left in August 2009.
With the Australian pianist Victor Sangiorgio, he toured with a two man show called "Life after Fawlty", which included Richard Strauss's voice and piano setting of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Enoch Arden". 2012 saw his last major role, as Bobby Swanson in the movie Quartet.
Sachs was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2012, which eventually left him unable to speak and forced him to use a wheelchair. He died on 23 November 2016 at the Denville Hall nursing home in Northwood, London, England. He was buried on 1 December 2016, the same day his death was publicly announced.
On 2 December 2016, BBC One broadcast the Fawlty Towers episode "Communication Problems" in his memory. John Cleese led tributes to Sachs, describing him as a "sweet, sweet man"Fawlty Towers- Actress
- Soundtrack
Prunella Scales was born on 22 June 1932 in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Howards End (1992), Fawlty Towers (1975) and Wolf (1994). She has been married to Timothy West since 26 October 1963. They have two children.Fawlty Towers- Actress
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Connie Booth was born on 2 December 1940 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Monty Python's and Now for Something Completely Different (1971) and Fawlty Towers (1975). She has been married to John Lahr since 19 August 2000. She was previously married to John Cleese.Fawlty Towers- Actor
- Writer
- Art Department
Irish comedian Dylan Moran was born in Navan, County Meath in 1971. Leaving school without any qualifications at age 16, Moran quickly became attracted to stand-up comedy and debuted, in 1992, at a comedy club in Dublin, The Comedy Cellar. A year later, he won the Channel Four comedy newcomer's "So You Think You're Funny" award at the Edinburgh Festival, and began developing his comedy routines into a one-man show, "Gurgling for Money", for which he won the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award in 1996, and which he subsequently took to a nationwide tour of the UK. His exposure at the Edinburgh Festival also led to him getting programmed at international stand-up comedy festivals, worldwide.
Subsequently, Moran took to writing and performing for British television. He has starred in the BBC sitcom, How Do You Want Me? (1998), and - more importantly - in 2000, he was commissioned by Channel Four for the sitcom, Black Books (2000). He wrote and starred in three 6-episode series of this comedy. Co-starring popular British stand-up comedian Bill Bailey, who was nominated for the Perrier Award the year Moran won, Black Books (2000) sees Moran play a character close to his stand-up comedy persona: an unsociable misanthrope, reminiscent of the John Cleese sitcom character, "Basil Fawlty", that shares a great love of wine with one of razor-sharp put-downs of all things human. Also, his character Bernard Black's often surreal views on everyday things and on human behavior is close to his stand-up persona's dealing with them.
The same year the first series of "Black Books" aired, Moran took his one-man show, "Ready, Steady, Cough", on a UK tour, followed two years later by Dylan Moran: Monster (2004). This was followed by Monster II in 2004.
In the late 1990's, Moran also moved from doing stand-up to working on a film acting CV. He played opposite Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill (1999), co-starred with Michael Caine in The Actors (2003) and had parts in the Simon Pegg comedy, Shaun of the Dead (2004) and the Michael Winterbottom film, Tristram Shandy (2005).
Moran's live stand-up comedy is unique in that it merges two strands of stand-up that seemed incompatible for a long time: sharp observational humor, and surreal and fantastical language-based absurdity. On the one hand, he has a clear influence from what could be called an American school of stand-up comedy that is heavily observational. On the other hand, Moran's comedy is characterized by a use of language similar to the stand-up comedy of Eddie Izzard and Ross Noble: surreal associative leaps between on the one side observations and on the other fantasies, verbally painting bizarre and absurd worlds, often through a use of stream-of-consciousness narration. His language is often highly poetic, resembling a James Joyce that has had one too many.
Moran is very reluctant to give interviews on his personal life and even on his career, a fact parodied in a staged interview inter-cut with the recording of his live stand-up show, "Monster", on its DVD release.Black Books- Tamsin Margaret Mary Greig is an English actress, narrator, and comedian. She played Fran Katzenjammer in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, Dr. Caroline Todd in the Channel 4 sitcom Green Wing, Beverly Lincoln in British-American sitcom Episodes, and Jackie Goodman in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner. Other roles include Alice Chenery in BBC One's comedy-drama series Love Soup, Debbie Aldridge in BBC Radio 4's soap opera The Archers, Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC version of Jane Austen's Emma, and Beth Hardiment in the 2010 film version of Tamara Drewe. In 2020, Greig starred as Anne Trenchard in Julian Fellowes' ITV series Belgravia.
Greig is also an acclaimed stage actress; she won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2007 for "Much Ado About Nothing", and was nominated again in 2011 and 2015 for her roles in "The Little Dog Laughed" and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown".Black Books, Friday Night Dinner - Actor
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Bill Bailey is known for his sharp wit and classic sense of humor. he is most famous for being in Never Mind The Buzzcocks, celebrity game-show in which he is a team captain. Bill is a stand up comedian, and has also starred in cult comedies such as Spaced and of course Black Books. He was given the award for the "best stand-up" at the British comedy awards.Black Books- Actor
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- Music Department
Ronnie Barker's remarkable versatility as a performer can be traced back to his time in repertory theatre, where he was able to play a wide range of roles and develop his talent for accents, voices and verbal dexterity. It was during this time that he met Glenn Melvyn, who taught him how to stammer (something he would later use to great effect in the sitcom Open All Hours (1976)). Melvyn also gave Ronnie his break into television by offering him a role in I'm Not Bothered (1956). During the 1960s, Ronnie became well-established in radio, providing multiple voices for "The Navy Lark" and working with comedy great Jon Pertwee. He also became a regular face on television, appearing in The Frost Report (1966) (perhaps most memorably in a sketch about Britain's class system, with John Cleese and Ronnie Corbett) and playing character roles on The Saint (1962) and The Avengers (1961).
In 1971, Ronnie teamed up with Ronnie Corbett again, this time for a BBC sketch series called The Two Ronnies (1971). This series proved enormously popular, continuing until the late 1980s. In addition to "The Two Ronnies", Barker starred on the popular BBC sitcoms Porridge (1974) (as a cockney prisoner) and Open All Hours (1976) (as a stammering Northern shopkeeper). In fact, only Leonard Rossiter could be said to have rivaled him during this time for the crown of British television's most popular comedy star. In 1982, he revived silent comedy in By the Sea (1982). Despite his extrovert performances on television, Barker remained a quiet, retiring individual in his personal life, much preferring to spend time with his family rather than mix with the celebrity crowd. This humility, combined with memories of his extraordinary abilities, meant that he continued to be greatly respected by his fellow professionals. In a BAFTA special shown by the BBC in 2004, stars as diverse as Gene Wilder, Peter Kay and Peter Hall paid tribute to his contribution to comedy and British television in general. Ronnie Barker died on 3 October 2005 after suffering from heart problems.Porridge, Open All hours- Actor
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English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was educated at Brockworth Comprehensive Secondary School in Gloucestershire and went on to Stratford-upon-Avon College to study English literature and performance studies. He then attended the University of Bristol, and earned a bachelor's degree in drama. In the early 2000s, Pegg moved to London and began forging a successful career in stand-up comedy. Television opportunities followed including roles in Six Pairs of Pants (1995), Asylum (1996), and We Know Where You Live (1997). In 1999, Pegg and Jessica Hynes teamed up to write and star in cult sitcom Spaced (1999), directed by Edgar Wright. The series also featured Pegg's best friend Nick Frost. Pegg's breakthrough in film came with the zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead (2004), which he also co-wrote with director Edgar Wright. Again, the film featured Nick Frost. The trio also scored a hit with police comedy Hot Fuzz (2007). Further film successes followed for Pegg, notably in the iconic role of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek (2009) and alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).Spaced- Paul Eddington was a tall, debonair actor who achieved international success in the 1970s with The Good Life (1975), a popular television series about a young couple farming their backyard in a London suburb. He played the supporting role of neighbor Jerry Leadbetter. It was the hit comedy series Yes Minister (1980), and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister (1986), in the 1980s that brought him television stardom as the inept politician Jim Hacker. The actor's performances as an incompetent government minister were so admired by Margaret Thatcher that she awarded him the honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Despite suffering from skin cancer, he continued to perform on stage and television, concealing his illness, until the tabloid press began suggesting that he had AIDS.The Good Life, Yes Prime Minister
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Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors both in his native UK and internationally, the unparalleled Nigel Hawthorne was born in Coventry, England on 5 April 1929, raised in South Africa and returned to the UK in the 1950s with his extensive work as a great gentleman of acting following during the decade as well as in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His portrayal of 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' in the BBC comedy Yes Minister (1980) won him international acclaim in the 1980s. In 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for his sublime interpretation of 'George III' in Alan Bennett's hit stage play, "The Madness of King George III" and he was also nominated for an Academy Award of Best Actor in a Leading Role in its brilliant film adaptation The Madness of King George (1994), both of them exquisitely directed by Nicholas Hytner.Yes Prime Minister- Actor
- Producer
London-born character actor Derek Fowlds came to the fore on television as 'Mr. Derek', straight man to the children's puppet Basil Brush (succeeding Rodney Bewes in that capacity), then as private secretary and political advisor Bernard Woolley, diligently keeping the reins on obtuse British Cabinet Minister Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) in Yes Minister (1980), and, finally, as retired police sergeant -- turned pub proprietor -- Oscar Blaketon during the entire 18-year run of Heartbeat (1992). Having done his national service in the RAF, Fowlds based the Blaketon character on a drill instructor, commenting "I just cut my hair shorter, slicked it back and shouted a lot and Oscar was born."
In his youth, Fowlds aspired to becoming a footballer. He first tried acting in school plays as a bit of a lark. "Just for kicks" he later decided to pursue the profession more seriously, trained at RADA and debuted on stage in a 1961 production of "The Miracle Worker" at London's Wyndham Theatre. Thereafter, he popped up in the occasional motion picture but was considerably more prolific on the small screen where he regularly alternated between comedy and drama. Early on, he played the lead in his own short-lived detective series, Take a Pair of Private Eyes (1966). His autobiography "A Part Worth Playing" was released in 2015.Yes Prime Minister- Actor
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Richard Briers was born on 14 January 1934 in Merton, Surrey, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Watership Down (1978), Much Ado About Nothing (1993) and Peter Pan (2003). He was married to Ann Davies. He died on 17 February 2013 in London, England, UK.The Good Life, Ever Decreasing Circles- Actor
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- Cinematographer
Peter Egan was born on 28 September 1946 in London, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for The Wedding Date (2005), Lillie (1978) and Chariots of Fire (1981). He was previously married to Myra Frances.Ever Decreasing Circles- Penelope Wilton was born on 3 June 1946 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Match Point (2005). She was previously married to Ian Holm and Daniel Massey.Ever Decreasing Circles
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Richard Wilson OBE (born Iain Carmichael Wilson) is a Scottish actor, theatre director and broadcaster. He played Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave (1990). A later role was as Gaius, the court physician of Camelot, in the BBC drama Merlin (2008).
Wilson was born in Greenock, Scotland. He studied science in Greenock, and did National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in Singapore. He worked in a laboratory at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow as a research scientist before switching to acting when he was 27. He trained at RADA and then appeared in repertory theatres in Edinburgh (Traverse Theatre), Glasgow and Manchester (Stables Theatre).
He initially turned down the role of Victor Meldrew and it was almost offered to Les Dawson before Wilson changed his mind.
Wilson was awarded the OBE for services to drama as a director and actor in 1994. In April 1996, he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow for a term of three years.
Wilson's biography, One Foot on the Stage: The Biography of Richard Wilson, was written by James Roose-Evans.
Wilson has worked for the gay rights campaign group Stonewall, and is one of the patrons of Scottish Youth Theatre. He is also a long-time supporter of the charity Sense, and in 2007 hosted their annual award ceremony. He is also one of the honorary patrons of the London children's charity Scene & Heard.
The narration of "The Man Who Called Himself Jesus", from Strawbs' eponymous first album, was performed by Wilson.
He is a major supporter of the Labour Party, and he recorded the party's manifesto for the 2010 General Election.
In March 2011, Wilson presented an edition of the Channel 4 current affairs programme Dispatches (1987) entitled Train Journeys from Hell (2011), with transport journalist Christian Wolmar highlighting the failings of the British rail network.
Wilson was a supporter of his local football club, Greenock Morton, but he has come to lend greater support to English club Manchester United. He is a patron of the Manchester United Supporters Trust. Wilson has been a campaigner for gay rights for many years, and he came out as gay in a Daily Mail interview in March 2013. He is good friends with his One Foot in the Grave (1990) co-star Angus Deayton, and is godfather to Deayton's son.
It was reported on 12 August 2016 that Wilson had suffered a heart attack. He had been due to reprise the role of Victor Meldrew in a one-man show at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.One Foot In The Grave, Only When I Laugh- Actor
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Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January, 1955, in Consett, Co. Durham, UK, to Ella May (Bainbridge) and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm, where Rowan grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees in electrical engineering. During that time, he met screenwriter Richard Curtis, with whom he wrote and performed comedy revues.
Later, he co-wrote and appeared in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), which was a huge success and spawned several best-selling books. It won an International Emmy Award and the British Academy Award for "Best Light Entertainment Programme of 1980." He won the "British Academy Award" and was named "BBC Personality of the Year" for his performance in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979).
Atkinson also appeared in several movies, including Dead on Time (1983), Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976) (aka "Monty Python Meets Beyond the Fringe"), Never Say Never Again (1983), and The Tall Guy (1989). He played "Mr. Bean" in the TV series, Mr. Bean (1990) but, apart from that and Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), he also appeared in several other series like Blackadder (1982) and Funny Business (1992), etc.
Atkinson enjoys nothing more than fast cars. He has two children, named Benjamin and Lily, with ex-wife Sunetra Sastry.Blackadder- Producer
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Tony Robinson was born on 15 August 1946 in London, England, UK. He is a producer and actor, known for Time Team (1994), Maid Marian and Her Merry Men (1989) and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989). He has been married to Louise Hobbs since 27 June 2011. He was previously married to Mary Shepherd.Blackadder- Actress
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Early in her career she worked in repertory in Manchester and while there obtained occasional television roles. When offered scripts she can usually tell within 5 pages if it is suitable for her. When it came to 'To the Manor Born' which was intended for a radio series, she considered it one of the best scripts that she'd read and asked to show it to BBC television light entertainment head John Howard Davis and the rest is history.The Good Life, To The Manor Born- Actor
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Rik Mayall, one of the first and foremost alternative comedians in the UK, was born in Matching Tye, a village just outside Harlow in Essex. His parents, John and Gillian, were both drama teachers. His acting debut was at the age of seven when he appeared in one of his father's stage plays. He met his comedy partner and best friend Adrian "Ade" Edmondson at Manchester University in 1975. Soon, the duo began performing together as a comedy act called "Twentieth Century Coyote" at the now legendary Comedy Store in London. They later moved their act to a venue called "The Comic Strip" and it was there that they were discovered by producer Paul Jackson. Rik and his friends, including Adrian Edmondson, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Alexei Sayle, Peter Richardson, and Nigel Planer were boomed onto television screens with immense success. He wrote The Young Ones (1982) with Ben Elton and Lise Mayer. You loved it or hated it, but you can't deny the impact it had on British sitcoms.
His career was launched, and, aged 24, he became one of the most popular comedians in Britain. He wrote and starred in various other television programmes and films over the years such as The New Statesman (1987); his role in it as Alan B'Stard earned him a BAFTA. He had his brief touch of Hollywood in 1991 when he starred as the title role in Drop Dead Fred (1991), but he soon returned to the British TV screens with Bottom (1991) a show which only ran for 3 seasons from 1991 to 1995 but was so popular that he and "Ade" toured with live shows based on the series around Britain every two years or so up until 2014.
In 1998, he suffered a severe accident and ended up in a coma after he crashed with his quad-bike at his farm in Devon. Luckily, he recovered and starred in films and shows such as Guest House Paradiso (1999) and Day of the Sirens (2002). In 2002, he proved that he was back and ready for action in the comedy series Believe Nothing (2002), which reunited him with Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, the writers of "The New Statesman". In 2003, he toured the UK alongside "Ade" with the fifth Bottom Live show.The Young Ones, The New Statesman- Actor
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Adrian Edmondson was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. He went to Manchester University to study drama. Whilst he was there he met Rik Mayall, and the pair began performing as 20th Century Coyote. The act continued after university when Adrian & Rik moved to London, and they became two of the leading lights in the new 'alternative comedy' scene, performing at the newly established Comedy Store, and setting up their own club, The Comic Strip, with Peter Richardson, Nigel Planer, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, and Alexei Sayle. This spawned two 1980s TV series: The Young Ones (1982), and The Comic Strip Presents (1982) In the 1990's Ade & Rik continued their partnership with a new series called Bottom (1991), which ran for three seasons and became a major success on the live circuit. It was basically a live sitcom, liberally sprinkled with slapstick humour, and the pair did 5 long tours between 1993 and 2003. Simultaneously, Adrian established himself as an actor, doing to improvised TV films under the Screen One and Screen Two umbrella, with director Les Blair: Honest, Decent and True (1986), and News Hounds (1990) (winner of the BAFTA for best single drama). He was a regular in the hospital drama Holby City (1999) from 2005 - 2008. He took the lead in a drama documentary about the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster in the series Surviving Disaster (2006), and appeared as Henry Austen in the TV movie Miss Austen Regrets (2007), the film Blood (2012), and the drama series Prey (2014). But his most notable dramatic role to date is that of Count Rostov in the BBC series War & Peace (2016). He has been married to Jennifer Saunders since 1985, and they have three children together.The Young Ones- Actor
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Nigel Planer was born in London and educated at the prestigious Westminster School. He then went to Sussex University to study African and Asian Studies. However, he left after a year and decided to pursue his love of theatre. He trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Planer performed at The Comedy Store in a double-act with Peter Richardson, which led to him becoming known to television audiences as Neil in The Young Ones (1982), the dim, unclean but lovable hippie with a fondness for Hawkwind, Marillion and Steve Hillage. The role's popularity even led to Planer releasing a cover of Traffic's 1967 single "Hole In My Shoe" in character as Neil. His cover, released in July 1984, reached number two on the UK singles chart and led to Planer making appearances on Top of the Pops (1964) and Australia's Countdown (1974). Planer also recorded an album called "Neil's Heavy Concept Album", although this failed to chart. In November 1984, Planer even made an appearance as Neil at the recording of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?", where he was able to perform an impromptu acoustic version of "Rocking All Over The World" with Rick Parfitt and address Phil Collins as "Joan", which was captured by cameras recording behind-the-scenes footage for a documentary.
Since the 1980s, Planer has established himself as one of Britain's most sought-after comedy and character actors. In 1985, he appeared in Terry Gilliam's acclaimed and influential science-fiction film Brazil (1985). His other appearances have included Shine on Harvey Moon (1982), various roles in The Comic Strip Presents (1982), Filthy Rich & Catflap (1987), Blackadder the Third (1987) and starring as the title role of Nicholas Craig, the Naked Actor (1990). Planer has also been a successful theatre actor. He has been nominated for Olivier, Theatrical Management Association, What's On Stage and BAFTA awards.The Young Ones