Victoria Wood was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Dawn Roma French is a British actress, comedian, and writer. She is known for writing and starring on the BBC sketch comedy series French and Saunders (1987–2007) with her best friend and comedy partner Jennifer Saunders, and playing the lead role of Geraldine Granger in the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley (1994–2020). French has been nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards and won a BAFTA Fellowship with Saunders in 2009.
Goodness Gracious Me is a BBC sketch comedy show originally aired on BBC Radio 4 from 1996 to 1998 and later televised on BBC Two from 1998 to 2001. The ensemble cast were four British Indian actors, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia. The show explored British Asian culture, and the conflict and integration between traditional Indian culture and modern British life. Some sketches reversed the roles to view the British from an Indian perspective, and others poked fun at Indian and Asian stereotypes. In the television series, most of the white characters were played by Dave Lamb and Fiona Allen; in the radio series those parts were played by the cast themselves. Some of the white characters were also played by Amanda Holden and Emma Kennedy.
Veronica "Ronni" Jane Ancona is a British actress, comedian, impressionist and writer best known for The Big Impression, which she co-wrote and starred in and was, for four years, one of BBC One's top-rated comedy programmes, winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003. Ancona also starred in the first series of the BAFTA-winning ITV series The Sketch Show. Ancona has appeared in the BAFTA-winning Last Tango in Halifax since its creation in 2012. She is a co-director, alongside Sally Phillips and Nick Hamson, of the production company Captain Dolly.
Sally Elizabeth Phillips is an English actress, comedian, and television presenter. She co-created and was one of the writers of the sketch comedy show Smack the Pony. She is also known for her roles in Jam & Jerusalem as Natasha "Tash" Vine, Miranda as Tilly, I'm Alan Partridge as Sophie, Parents as Jenny Pope, Set the Thames on Fire as Colette in 2015, Zapped as Slasher Morgan, and her guest appearances as the fictional Prime Minister of Finland Minna Häkkinen in the US TV series Veep. Phillips also co-starred in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as Mrs Bennet and in the role of Shazza in all three films of the Bridget Jones franchise.
Kevin Eldon is an English actor and comedian. He featured in British comedy television shows of the 1990s including Fist of Fun, This Morning with Richard Not Judy, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, Big Train, Brass Eye and Jam. In 2013, Eldon appeared in his own BBC sketch series It's Kevin. He has also appeared in minor speaking roles in the HBO series Game of Thrones.
Julia Charlotte L. Davis is an English actress, comedian, director and writer. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night (2004–2005) and the comedies Hunderby (2012–2015) and Camping (2016), which she also directed. Davis has been noted by critics for creating boundary-pushing black comedy that centres female anti-hero characters.
Catherine Jane Ford, known professionally as Catherine Tate, is a British actress, comedian and writer. She has won numerous awards for her work on the BBC sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show (2004–2007), as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and seven BAFTAs. Tate played Donna Noble in the 2006 Christmas special of Doctor Who, and later reprised her role for the fourth series in 2008, and the 60th anniversary episodes in 2023.
That Mitchell and Webb Sound is a comedy sketch show on BBC Radio 4 which started on 28 August 2003. A second series was broadcast in 2005 with a third starting on 24 May 2007. The series became adapted for television as That Mitchell and Webb Look in 2006. The series is seen in some ways as a follow-up to The Mitchell and Webb Situation, a sketch show shown on Play UK in 2001. That Mitchell and Webb Sound returned to BBC Radio 4 for a fourth series in 2009, the first episode broadcasting on 25 August 2009. A fifth series was announced in September 2013, and began transmission on 26 November 2013.
Laura Madalene Solon is an English screenwriter, comedian, actress, and winner of the 2005 Perrier Comedy Award. She was the second woman to win as a solo performer, after Jenny Eclair in 1995.
Alison Steadman is an English actress. She received the 1991 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for the Mike Leigh film Life Is Sweet and the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role as Mari in the original production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. In a 2007 Channel 4 poll, the ‘50 Greatest Actors’ voted for by other actors, she was ranked 42.
Benjamin Thomas Willbond is an English actor and screenwriter best known as a member of the British Them There collective, for which he has written and starred in productions including Horrible Histories, Yonderland, and Ghosts.
Katherine Parkinson is an English actress and comedian. She appeared in Channel 4's The IT Crowd comedy series as Jen Barber, for which she received a British Comedy Best TV Actress Award in 2009 and 2014, and was nominated twice for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance, winning in 2014. Parkinson studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and has appeared on stage in the plays The Seagull (2007), Cock (2009), and Home, I'm Darling (2018), for which she was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Benedict Moor is an English comedy writer and actor.
Harry & Paul is a British sketch comedy show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 13 April 2007. Prior to broadcast it was trailed as The Harry Enfield Show.
Marek Ryan Larwood is an English comedian and actor. He is best known for the BBC Three sketch show Rush Hour and for being one third of the comedy trio We Are Klang.
Gavin & Stacey is a British sitcom written by James Corden and Ruth Jones about two families: one in Billericay, Essex; one in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan. Mathew Horne and Joanna Page play the eponymous characters Gavin and Stacey, while Corden and Jones star as Smithy and Nessa. Alison Steadman and Larry Lamb star as Gavin's parents, and Melanie Walters (Gwen) is Stacey's mother and Rob Brydon (Bryn) is Stacey's uncle.
Celia Daisy Morna Haggard is a British actress and writer. She is known for her roles in the BBC sitcoms Uncle and Episodes. Haggard stars in BBC Three’s comedy-drama, Back to Life, which she also created and co-wrote with Laura Solon. Since 2020, she has appeared alongside Martin Freeman as Ally in the FX series Breeders, a role for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance.
Frank Skinner's Opinionated is a British television comedy talk show hosted by the comedian Frank Skinner and produced by Avalon Television for the BBC. The show focusses on various topics in the previous week's news, with Skinner joined by two celebrity guests, also interacting with the studio audience. Each half-hour episode is filmed in a different location around the country. It was first shown on BBC Two, with a first series of six episodes broadcast from 16 April 2010, and a second of six more beginning on 25 March 2011. The third and final series began broadcasting on 10 November 2011.
