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.
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English actress, comedian, singer, and screenwriter. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with her best friend and comedy partner, Dawn French. With French, she co-wrote and starred in their eponymous sketch show, French and Saunders, for which they jointly received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2009. Saunders later received acclaim in the 1990s for writing and playing her character Edina Monsoon in her sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring comedy duo and namesake Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders that originally broadcast on BBC2 from 1987 to 1993, and later on BBC One until 2017. It is also the name by which the performers are known when they appear elsewhere as a double act. The show was given one of the highest budgets in BBC history to create detailed spoofs and satires of popular culture, movies, celebrities, and art. French and Saunders continued to film holiday specials for the BBC, and both have been individually successful starring in other shows.
Absolutely is a British comedy sketch show. The cast and crew are mainly Scottish; the principal writers and performers are Moray Hunter, Jack Docherty, Peter Baikie, Gordon Kennedy, Morwenna Banks (English) and John Sparkes (Welsh). The original television series, produced by Absolutely Productions, aired on Channel 4 for four series between May 1989 and February 1993. Following an award-winning one-off radio reunion special for BBC Radio 4 in 2013, the show returned for a new four-part radio series with most of the original cast in September 2015. A second Radio 4 series of four programmes was broadcast from 25 June 2017, and a third in July 2019.
John Docherty is a Scottish writer, actor, presenter and producer.
John Sparkes is a Welsh actor and comedian. He portrayed Barry Welsh, presenter of the HTV Wales series Barry Welsh Is Coming. He has also had major roles in Naked Video, Absolutely, Fireman Sam, Shaun the Sheep, and Jeff Global's Global Probe, and is the narrator of the children's television show Peppa Pig.
Tamsin Morwenna Banks is a British actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She appeared in the Channel 4 comedy sketch show Absolutely, and wrote, produced, and appeared in the British ensemble film The Announcement. She voices Mummy Pig, Madame Gazelle and Dr Hamster in the children's series Peppa Pig. She adapted Nick Hornby's novel Funny Girl for Sky Max and is a writer on Slow Horses for Apple TV+.
Elliot Goblet is a comedy character created by the Australian comedian Jack Levi. The character is known for the deadpan delivery of one-line jokes. The style compares with the American comedian Steven Wright but developed independently. At first Goblet appeared with round glasses and a goatee beard, but the beard was later removed.
David James Stuart Mitchell is a British comedian, actor and writer.
Ruth Alexandra Elisabeth Jones is a Welsh actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She co-wrote and co-starred in the award-winning BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey. She later co-wrote and starred in the Sky One comedy-drama Stella (2012–2017), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance and won the BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Screenwriter.
Helen Margaret Lederer is a British comedian, writer and actress who emerged as part of the alternative comedy boom at the beginning of the 1980s. Among her television credits are the BBC2 sketch series Naked Video and BBC One's Absolutely Fabulous, in which she played the role of Catriona.
Barry Welsh Is Coming is a Welsh sketch show produced by Absolutely Productions for HTV Wales. The programme was first broadcast at 10:40 pm on Friday 6 September 1996 and originally ran for six series with some episodes later broadcast on the Paramount Comedy Channel. It was produced by Pete Baikie, and almost all the main characters were played by John Sparkes, who also played the inept presenter Barry Welsh. For the final series, the show was renamed Barry Welsh Is Going and consisted of three compilation specials. The series was replaced by Jeff Global's Global Probe, which ended after six episodes.
The Cheese Shop were a troupe of six comedy writer-performers from the revue circuit of University of Warwick.
Moray Hunter is a Scottish comedian, writer and performer. He starred in the Channel 4 sketch show, Absolutely. Alongside Jack Docherty, he played one half of the eccentric double-act, Don and George, in Absolutely and later in the spin-off series, Mr Don & Mr George. He also provided the voice for a shadow puppet in one of Aardman Animations' short films, Humdrum. He has written, produced and appeared in a variety of radio and television productions.
Absolutely Productions is a British media production company, working mostly in television, formed in 1988 by Morwenna Banks, Jack Docherty, Moray Hunter, Pete Baikie, John Sparkes, and Gordon Kennedy, all of whom were the cast of British television comedy sketch show Absolutely.
John Archer is a British comedy magician, television writer and actor. As well as performing magic, he has also commercially released a number of his tricks through various magic suppliers.
The Jack Docherty Show was a weeknightly comedy chat show which first aired on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom between 30 March 1997 and 23 June 1999. Presented by comedian Jack Docherty, the programme was one of the first to air on the channel, doing so as part of its opening-night schedule on 30 March 1997. The show was recorded at London's Whitehall Theatre during the early evening and would then be broadcast in a late-night slot. It featured a mixture of chat with celebrity guests, comedy, and music, and followed a similar format to shows such as NBC's Late Night with David Letterman in the United States.
Katy Victoria J Wix is a Welsh actress, writer, author and artist. Her television roles include Carole in Stath Lets Flats, Mary in Ghosts, Barbara in Ted Lasso, and Jules in Big Boys. She has also appeared as a series contestant on Taskmaster and as a recurring character in the science fiction mini-series Torchwood: Children of Earth in 2009. She has written two series of her own: a sitcom for BBC Radio 4, Bird Island and a sketch show for Channel 4, Anna & Katy. In 2017, her painting was chosen for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. She has written two books of monologues and in 2021 she published her first memoir, Delicacy.
Philip Brian Clarke is a British television comedy producer and executive. He has produced or executive produced many popular British TV comedy programmes including Peep Show, Brass Eye, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Big Train. In 2012 Clarke became Head of Comedy at Channel 4. In 2017 he founded the independent television production company Various Artists Ltd (VAL), along with co-directors Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Roberto Troni. Since founding VAL, Clarke has produced and/or executive produced the BAFTA-award winning Sally4Ever,Such Brave Girls, and the multi-BAFTA and Emmy-winning I May Destroy You.
Richard David-Caine is an English actor, writer and voiceover artist. Between 2013 and 2019 he played the character of Line in the CBeebies series Swashbuckle. He is also part of the key ensembles in the BBC comedies Horrible Histories and Class Dismissed; for the latter he was nominated in the 2017 and 2019 RTS Awards for Best Performance in a Comedy. In 2020, he co-created, wrote and starred in Big Fat Like, a comedy sketch show pastiching the Internet.