Career: Barker joined the Oxford Playhouse in 1951 and other theatrical work in the West End followed. His theatrical success led to radio work, and he featured in 300 episodes of radio sitcom The Navy Lark, which ran from 1959 to 1977. His big break on TV came in the late 1960s when he appeared alongside Ronnie Corbett and John Cleese on The Frost Report. Barker went on to star in Porridge, Open All Hours, and, with Ronnie Corbett, formed one of the best-loved double acts of the 1970s and 1980s as The Two Ronnies. He also appeared with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in the film Robin and Marian, a bleak version of the Robin Hood legend. Barker retired from acting in 1987 to run an antiques business, but returned briefly to star as Winston Churchill's butler in acclaimed 2002 TV movie The Gathering Storm, and alongside Maggie Smith in My House in Umbria in 2003. He died of heart failure at a hospice in Oxfordshire on October 3, 2005, at the age of 76.

Career: In 1966, David Frost asked Corbett to join The Frost Report, where he met Ronnie Barker. Their on-screen chemistry proved so successful that their series, The Two Ronnies, ran from 1971 to 1987. After Barker's retirement, Corbett appeared in cabaret, in the Ray Cooney farce Out of Order and John Cleese's film Fierce Creatures, and featured in a variety of TV programmes, including The Ronnie Corbett Show and The Ben Elton Show. During his time on The Two Ronnies, he also had his own sitcom, Sorry!, which ran for seven years. His other TV credits included Love Soup, Extras, Little Britain and two-part documentary Ronnie Corbett's Comedy Britain. He revived some of his old Two Ronnies sketches together with new material in a special Christmas Day show The One Ronnie, which aired in 2010. He died on March 31, 2016 at the age of 85.

Career: Essex's first big break was winning the lead role of Jesus in musical Godspell. He later appeared in the David Puttnam films That'll Be The Day and Stardust. The movies reinvigorated Essex's ambitions to be a singer, and he got his first number one in 1973 with Rock On. He enjoyed a successful music career throughout the rest of the 1970s scoring several more chart-topping hits, including Hold Me Close and Gonna Make You a Star. He continues to act and sing, appearing on the stage in Footloose, Aspects of Love and his own musical, All the Fun of the Fair. During 2011 he appeared in EastEnders as Eddie Moon. This was his highest-profile TV role since genteel sitcom The River in 1988.