Trivia: Best known as one-half of the British sketch comedy team French and Saunders and as the star of the long-running sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, the unabashedly full-figured, rubber-faced Welsh comedienne Dawn French began life in the harbor town of Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales, on October 11, 1957. As a young woman, French trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, where she famously met fellow student Jennifer Saunders, then another aspiring comic. The two not only forged a lifelong friendship, but teamed up at the tail end of the 1970s as a comedy act. French suggested that they audition in response to a Stage magazine ad for up-and-coming comedians; this led instantly to a niche at the infamous Comic Strip Club, performing alongside Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, and others on a weekly basis. A regular gig with this troupe on its BBC "movie spoof" sketch comedy series The Comic Strip Presents -- which ran from 1982 to 1988, with a four-year revival in 1990 and a three-year revival in 1998 -- so furthered public awareness of French and Saunders and dramatically heightened their popularity that a spin-off series was naturally inevitable. French & Saunders debuted in 1987 to off-the-chart ratings and sensational critical reviews. The pair scripted and starred in episodes; French's most famous and beloved bits included caricatures of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Madonna, and Cher. French debuted in feature films circa 1987, alongside Saunders and many of her Comic Strip cohorts, in the jet-black comedy Eat the Rich -- a spoof of cannibalism with guest spots by Paul McCartney, Koo Stark, Robbie Coltrane, and others. The film, however, was understandably reviled by critics on both sides of the Atlantic and disappeared quickly, which may explain why French gravitated back to television. Alongside her ongoing involvement in French & Saunders as a writer and performer (which continued through the first several years of the new millennium), French launched a second series in 1994, The Vicar of Dibley. The program cast her as the supremely unconventional and irreverent (female) vicar of the title -- a new arrival in a village of eccentric people -- with a flair for devouring mounds of chocolate and tossing out potshots and double-entendres left and right. Vicar, like French & Saunders, scored with the public and press and lasted 13 years, finally wrapping in January 2007. In 2004, French -- perhaps having fully rebounded from the Eat the Rich debacle -- returned in full glory to feature films, this time more respectably and to improved critical reception. She lent a supporting role as The Fat Lady (in the painting) in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and voiced Mrs. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). French also essayed the role of a therapist in Alek Keshishian's Love and Other Disasters, starring Brittany Murphy and Matthew Rhys. She voiced Miss Forcible in the 2007 animated fantasy Coraline. The characterization of The Fat Lady in Harry Potter is not a unique one for French. Early on, the comic actress used her weight (which has visibly increased over the years) as a key source of her schtick, not only in her BBC series but also in television advertisements. In late 2001, she did spots in the U.K. for Terry's Chocolate Orange segment candies which had her notoriously refusing to share, and an ad for Terry's Chocolate Orange Snowballs which had French rolling down a giant ski slope until she resembled a massive snowball. Off-camera, French is a vociferous proponent of "full-figured" women and markets the oversized female clothing line Sixteen 47 throughout Great Britain.

Trivia: Met Ruth Jones while they were both at Porthcawl Comprehensive School. Joined Radio Wales at 20 years old. From 1994 he became the main presenter of Rave, BBC Radio 5s youth magazine and music program. For 2009 Comic Relief Brydon performed "(Barry) Islands in the Stream" with Ruth Jones and singer Tom Jones. It reached Number 1 in the UK Single Charts. On April 1, 2011 he replaced Ken Bruce on BBC Radio2 as one of his impersonations on April Fools' Day. Released his biography, Small Man in a Book in 2011. Voices the character Lewton in the Discworld computer game Discworld Noir. Took part in Channel 4s Comedy Gala 2010. Appointed an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2013.

Trivia: Formerly known as Jessica Stevenson (she officially changed her name in 2007 to her married name, despite having used her maiden name professionally for more than a decade), actress and screenwriter Jessica Hynes was born in Lewisham, England, but raised in Brighton. As a youth, Hynes gravitated to stage performance and enlisted in the National Youth Theatre ensemble when she was in her teens. Hynes broke into features at the age of 21, with a role in Peter Greenaway's The Baby of Macon; several years of various performance activities then ensued, including a substantial part in a straight-faced nursing drama on British television and participation in a two-woman comedy act called "the Liz Hurleys" (opposite actress Katy Carmichael). Hynes' most substantial acclaim, however, arose from two long-running comedic stints on television: the role of nutty neighbor Cheryl in the situation comedy The Royle Family and an assignment developing, writing, and starring in the popular sitcom Spaced (1999), as Daisy Steiner, alongside Simon Pegg. Taking the success of these ventures as a cue, Hynes then branched out into feature films, with small offbeat characterizations in productions including Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), Shaun of the Dead (done with several Spaced creators including Pegg), and Son of Rambow. Fantasy enthusiasts may also recall her voice work as Mafalda Hopkirk, who reprimands Harry via a letter from the Ministry of Magic for his improper use of magic in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). Off-camera, Hynes remained fully active in stage pursuits and was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for her contribution to the play The Night Heron in 2003.

Trivia: Trained at the East 15 Acting School, British actress Alison Steadman worked as a secretary for the Liverpool Probation Service before making her professional stage bow in 1968. Five years later, Steadman made her London theatrical debut. She won a plethora of awards for her rendition of the title role in both the stage and film version of Abigail's Party. This and several subsequent productions were directed by Steadman's former husband, Mike Leigh. She has starred in the British TV series Wackers (1975) and Gone to Seed (1992), and has made a number of conspicuous film appearances since her 1982 screen debut in Kipperbang. American TV viewers will remember Steadman as Mrs. Marlowe in the wildly eccentric Dennis Potter miniseries The Singing Detective. More recently, Alison Steadman was seen as Mrs. Bennet in the 1995 British TV-miniseries production of Pride and Prejudice.