Career: Patel shot to prominence after being cast as sex-obsessed Muslim teenager Anwar in Channel 4 comedy drama Skins. The show became an overnight hit with viewers and won the Rose d'Or for drama in 2008 and scooped the Philips Audience Award at the Baftas a year later. The entire Skins cast was re-cast at the end of series two, and Dev beat hundreds of actors to be cast in the lead role of Danny Boyle's heartwarming drama Slumdog Millionaire. The film went on to win a staggering eight Academy Awards in 2009. He went on to appear in M Night Shyamalan's 2010 blockbuster The Last Airbender and 2012 comedy drama The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, alongside Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith. Since 2012, he has starred in HBO drama The Newsroom.

Career: Playing mainly minor roles, Capaldi went on to feature in episodes of Minder, C.A.T.S. Eyes, The Lair of the White Worm, Rab C Nesbitt, Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Agatha Christie's Poirot and the miniseries Selling Hitler. He returned to the big screen when he wrote and starred in 1993's low-budget Soft Top Hard Shoulder. Guest starring roles followed in Prime Suspect 3, The Vicar of Dibley, Judge John Deed, My Family and Midsomer Murders. His profile raised significantly in 2005 when he began playing foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in BBC comedy The Thick of It, a role that won him a Bafta. He also played Tucker in movie spin-off In the Loop. Always in-demand, his other TV credits include Skins, Torchwood: Children of Earth, The Nativity, Getting On and The Hour. He is currently playing the twelfth incarnation of the Time Lord in Doctor Who, a role he had long coveted.

Career: Finding herself drawn to more obscure fare, Swinton began an association with experimental director Derek Jarman. She continued to work with Jarman for the next nine years, developing seven critically acclaimed films, including Caravaggio, The Last of England, The Garden, Edward II and Wittgenstein. After Jarman's untimely death in 1994, she took the title role in the hugely popular arthouse flick Orlando and began experimenting with new and untried directors and mediums, but also starred in more mainstream productions, such as The Beach, Constantine, Michael Clayton (for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar), and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. She also had roles in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I Am Love and Only Lovers Left Alive.

Career: Fry and Laurie's stage success led to the TV sketch show Alfresco, which also featured Emma Thompson, Ben Elton and Robbie Coltrane. In 1987, Elton cast him in sitcom Blackadder the Third as amiable idiot George. A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and Jeeves and Wooster cemented his reputation as one of the UK's brightest comedy talents. He appeared with several celebrity pals in the movies Peter's Friends, Maybe Baby, and Sense and Sensibility. Other projects include 101 Dalmatians, The Man in the Iron Mask, Stuart Little and its sequel, the Flight of the Phoenix remake and TV series Fortysomething. His novel, The Gun Seller, was also a hit. His award-winning role in House turned him into an international star. Since it ended in 2012, Laurie has largely concentrated on music.

Career: Whishaw made his film debut in The Trench (1999). His other film credits include Layer Cake (2004), Stoned (2005), Brideshead Revisited (2008), The Tempest (2010) and Cloud Atlas (2012). He has played Q in the James Bond movies Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). More recently, he has voiced the title character in Paddington (2014) and appeared in The Lobster (2015), Suffragette (2015), The Danish Girl (2015) and In the Heart of the Sea (2015). On the small screen, he has starred in Nathan Barley, Criminal Justice, The Hollow Crown, The Hour and London Spy.

Career: Martin's TV debut came in an episode of Midsomer Murders, but she first made a mark on the acting world on stage, thanks to an acclaimed performance in the National Theatre's epic, six-hour adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials during the winter of 2003 and 2004. A year later she won a Bafta for her performance in the BBC's Bleak House; she picked up her second Bafta for Poppy Shakespeare in 2008. In fact, everything Martin touches seems to turn to gold - she's suffered very few flops or misfires in her career so far. On stage she's impressed in the likes of The Entertainer, Cabaret and Measure for Measure, while other TV projects include Freefall, Moonshot, South Riding, The Bletchley Circle and Death Comes to Pemberley (which was partly shot in her home town). Martin has been less active on film, with Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013) and Philomena (2013) the highlights.

Career: Whitehouse and Higson later moved in together on a London housing estate where they met Harry Enfield. When the latter's comedy character Stavros took off in the late 1980s, the pair were asked to write for him. Whitehouse also wrote for Vic Reeves, and took inspiration for other characters from the people he worked with in the building trade. He and Higson later devised the award-winning Fast Show. Since then he's been dubbed the world's greatest actor by friend and fan Johnny Depp. Other projects include Jumpers for Goalposts, Happiness, Help, Kevin and Perry Go Large, Harry and Paul, and Bellamy's People.

Career: In 1988, he was offered a job by BBC Radio Scotland, presenting No' The Archie Macpherson Show and Bite the Wax. Armando moved to London a year later after applying for a producer's job. He had already earned a reputation as an edgy performer, but On the Hour and Knowing Me, Knowing You brought him into the limelight as a writer and producer. Since then, Armando has written and produced extensively on TV and radio, including The News Quiz, Quote… Unquote, Brass Eye, The Day Today and The Thick of It. He has presented The Saturday Night Armistice and his own self-titled show. A move into cinema with The Thick of It spin-off In the Loop gained recognition at the 2010 Oscars. His US sitcom Veep has been well-received, and he was part of the writing team for big-screen spin-off Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.