Career: Shaw's first major TV role was in a 1967 episode of Coronation Street. Keen on Shakespeare, he appeared in a TV movie of Hamlet, and Roman Polanski's 1971 film Macbeth. After impressing TV executives with his performance alongside Lewis Collins as Purdey's ex-fiance in The New Avengers, he landed the part of Doyle in The Professionals. When it was axed after four years in 1981, he went back to the stage. In 1993 he returned to TV with The Chief, and three years later starred in BBC mega-flop Rhodes. Since then, he's appeared in The Scarlet Pimpernel, A&E, Judge John Deed, Death in Holy Orders, Inspector George Gently, Apparitions and picked up a Tony nomination for a Broadway production of An Ideal Husband.

Career: Brown's acting career spans five decades; his first stint on TV was playing Sam Potter in A Horseman Riding By. He's since gone on to regularly crop up in other British dramas including Midsomer Murders, Casualty, New Tricks, Doctors, Waterloo Road and Death Comes to Pemberley.