Career: Lumley's first film was 1969's Some Girls Do, followed by Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Her most notable early role was as Ken Barlow's girlfriend Elaine in Coronation Street. Lumley became famous thanks to The New Avengers in 1976. After Sapphire and Steel in the late 1970s, she turned her attention to the theatre and had a stint as a Times columnist. In 1992, Jennifer Saunders cast her as Patsy in sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Since then, she has appeared in numerous TV dramas and films, including Maybe Baby, James and the Giant Peach, Jam & Jerusalem, Sensitive Skin, The Making of a Lady and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Career: Carroll's stage credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Lady's Not for Burning, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Recruiting Officer, The Magistrate and After the Dance, for which she won an Olivier award. On the small screen, she has made guest appearances in Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Dalziel and Pascoe, and Silent Witness. More recently, she played Lady Felicia Montague in the BBC daytime drama Father Brown. On film, she has also starred in Iris (2001).

Career: Walker landed the title role in the TV series Lorna Doone before making her feature debut in Shogun Warrior in 1991. In the same year she appeared in two other films, Les Equilibristes and Mike Newell's Enchanted April, in which she played an aristocrat eager to escape the attentions of her persistent admirers. She came to international attention as a single-minded member of an Irish terrorist splinter group in Phillip Noyce's Patriot Games (1992), and has worked steadily in both TV and cinema since, including a star turn in the miniseries State of Play. In 2005, she appeared in the first season of the HBO series Rome, playing Atia, the niece of Julius Caesar and mother of Octavian, later Caesar Augustus. More recent work includes roles in Waking the Dead, Miss Marple: At Bertram's Hotel, Numb3rs, Caprica, Sanctuary, Prisoners Wives, Clash of the Titans (2010), John Carter (2012), Warehouse 13 and Mr Selfridge.

Career: Gatiss eventually settled in London, where he hoped to earn a living as an actor but made ends meet writing Doctor Who books. He and friends Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson formed The League of Gentlemen in 1995, which had successful stints on stage, radio, TV and film. Since then he's appeared in Bright Young Things, Marple, The Quatermass Experiment, Nighty Night and Jekyll. Gatiss was also script editor on the first Little Britain series, and has penned episodes of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Doctor Who (in which he's also appeared). He portrayed Malcolm MacLaren in the 2010 drama Worried About the Boy and co-created Sherlock with Steven Moffat.