Career: Following acclaimed performances at university, Jacobi joined Birmingham Rep. He was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the National Theatre Company. He made his film debut alongside Olivier in 1965's Othello. Since then, Jacobi has continued to make acclaimed appearances on stage and screen. Among his films are The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, Love Is the Devil, Gladiator, Gosford Park, The King's Speech and Hereafter. He inspired Kenneth Branagh to become an actor and worked alongside him in Henry V, Hamlet and Dead Again. Jacobi won a Bafta for I, Claudius in 1977, starred in the medieval-set series Cadfael, played The Master in Doctor Who, is the narrator of In the Night Garden and scored a surprise hit with Last Tango in Halifax.

Career: Blessed started out on the stage, but gained fame playing Fancy Smith in Z Cars from 1962 to 1965. He's rarely been out of work since and has tackled a wide variety of roles on TV, stage and in films. Among his most memorable projects are Henry VIII and his Six Wives, I, Claudius, Flash Gordon, The Black Adder, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. More recently, he featured in Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace and Oliver Stone's Alexander. In 2014, he was the subject of an edition of Who Do You Think You Are? He is in constant demand for voiceover work.

Career: A long association with the Royal Shakespeare Company began in 1966. Stewart's first small-screen role came in 1974's A Fall of Eagles, and his movie debut a year later in Tilney. His subsequent TV roles include I, Claudius, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Star Trek: The Next Generation, which made him a household name on both sides of the Atlantic. He returned to the stage when the series ended in 1994. Stewart has since appeared in the Star Trek movies Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis. He's also starred in Conspiracy Theory and the blockbusting X-Men films. He made a memorable appearance in Extras, starred alongside David Tennant in Hamlet.