Career: Syms' first film role came in 1953's It Happens Every Thursday. Three years later, her big break came in My Teenage Daughter. She was a highly popular star for the next 15 years thanks to such movies as Ice-Cold in Alex, Expresso Bongo, Victim, and The Quare Fellow, featuring arguably her best performance. She was also nominated for a Bafta for The Tamarind Seed in 1974. Since then, her most memorable work has largely been on TV, although she did have a small role in 1989's Shirley Valentine. She had a regular role in Peak Practice in the mid-1990s and became a familiar face again thanks to At Home with the Braithwaites.

Career: Thaw's first professional job came at the Liverpool Playhouse. His film debut came in 1962's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which starred Courteney. Thaw worked extensively on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre, and early TV roles came in Z Cars and Redcap. But it was The Sweeney, alongside Dennis Waterman, that made him a household name thanks to its uncompromising style. He switched to comedy with Home to Roost, but it was playing Inspector Morse that made him a national treasure. Almost everything he touched then turned to gold; he starred in top-rated dramas such as Kavanagh QC, Goodnight Mister Tom and Buried Treasure. He died in 2002 following a battle with cancer of the oesophagus.