Sir Peter John Viggers was a British Conservative politician and lawyer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Gosport for 36 years, from 1974 to 2010. He stepped down as a result of the investigation of MPs' expenses.
Bennet Evan Miller is an English comedian, actor and author. He rose to fame as one half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller. He is also known for his roles as DI Richard Poole in the BBC crime drama series Death in Paradise and James Lester in the ITV sci-fi series Primeval.
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. Opening in 1870, the theatre staged mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. The theatre was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous structure. The current building dates from 1926, and the capacity is now 690 seats. Early stage mechanisms, including rare thunder drums and lightning sheets, survive in the theatre.
Dame Maria Frances Miller is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Basingstoke since 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, she served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2012 to 2014 under Prime Minister David Cameron.
Tanya Christine Franks is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Rainie Cross in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders.
Deborah Chazen is an English actress. She is best known for portraying Annie in the BBC comedy The Smoking Room, Big Claire in Mine All Mine, and various roles in the BBC sketch show Tittybangbang. Alongside these appearances, Chazen has had recurring roles on Trollied and Holby City.
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.
Trafalgar Theatre is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1930 with interiors in the Art Deco style as the Whitehall Theatre; it regularly staged comedies and revues. It was converted into a television and radio studio in the 1990s, before returning to theatrical use in 2004 as Trafalgar Studios, the name it bore until 2020, with the auditorium converted to two studio spaces. It re-opened in 2021 following a major multi-million pound project to reinstate it to its original single-auditorium design.
Andrew Nyman is an English actor, director, writer and magician.
Terry Johnson is a British dramatist and director working for stage, television and film. Educated at Birmingham University, he worked as an actor from 1971 to 1975, and has been active as a playwright since the early 1980s.
Simon Stephen Shepherd is an English actor best known to TV audiences from many appearances, including as Dr Will Preston in eight series of ITV's Peak Practice and Doctor Jonathan Barling in Casualty.
Nancy Carroll is a British actress. She has worked extensively in theatre productions, particularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has won Best Actress at the Olivier Awards and the Evening Standard Awards. She also has numerous film and television credits, including a long-running feature role as Lady Felicia in the BBC series Father Brown.
Dan Patterson is a British television producer and writer, best known as co-creator, alongside Mark Leveson, and producer of both the British and American incarnations of the comedy improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the British satirical comedy panel show Mock the Week.
Sean Foley is a British director, writer, comedian and actor. Following early success as part of the comedy double act The Right Size and their long-running stage show The Play What I Wrote, Foley has more recently become a director, including of several West End comedy productions. In 2019, he was appointed as Artistic Director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
Roy Smiles is a singer-songwriter & playwright from Ealing, London. He is also an occasional actor.
Diana Vickers is an English singer, songwriter and actress. She was semi-finalist on The X Factor in 2008. Vickers signed a record deal with RCA Records and, after touring with her fellow finalists from The X Factor, played the title role in a West End revival of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.
The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal that emerged in 2009, concerning expense claims made by members of the British Parliament in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords over the previous years. The disclosure of widespread misuse of allowances and expenses permitted to members of Parliament (MPs) aroused widespread anger among the UK public and resulted in a large number of resignations, sackings, de-selections and retirement announcements together with public apologies and the repayment of expenses. Several members, and former members, of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords were prosecuted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
Barking in Essex is a black comedy directed by Harry Burton. It is based on the 2005 script by Clive Exton, and made its world premiere at the Wyndham's Theatre in September 2013.
Great Britain is a satirical play written by Richard Bean. It received its world premiere at the Royal National Theatre, London on 30 June 2014, before transferring to the West End's Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Michael Fentiman is a British theatre director.
