Career: Briers' film career began in the 1960s with British features including Bottoms Up, Murder She Said, and The Girl on the Boat. He turned his attention to TV, gaining fame initially in the sitcom Marriage Lines, but it's probably for The Good Life that he will be best remembered. He teamed up again with its creators, John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, on the 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles. Briers went on to join Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company, taking on more classical and Shakespearean roles including King Lear and Uncle Vanya. He's also appeared in Monarch of the Glen, Peter Pan, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Torchwood. He voiced the cartoon Roobarb twice - in 1974 and 2005.

Career: Routledge's extensive stage credits include roles in a number of Royal Shakespeare Company productions, How's the World Treating You in London and on Broadway, The Pirates of Penzance in New York's Central Park, and Facade at Carnegie Recital Hall. She won a Tony Award in 1968 for Darling of the Day and an Olivier Award in 1988 for Leonard Bernstein's Candide. Other theatre credits include Noises Off, Talking Heads, The Importance of Being Earnest, and An Ideal Husband. Even well into her ninth decade, she continues to perform on the stage. She is better known to TV audiences as Hyacinth Bucket in the hugely popular comedy series Keeping Up Appearances. She went on to play the title role in the mystery drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.