Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE (8 February 1888 – 14 October 1976) was a British actress. She was known for her work on the British stage. She also appeared in a number of films, for which she received three Academy Award nominations, plus a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award.

Evans was particularly well known at portraying haughty aristocratic ladies, as in two of her most famous roles: Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (both on stage and in the 1952 film), and Miss Western in the 1963 film of Tom Jones. By contrast, she played a poverty-stricken old woman in one of her most acclaimed film roles, in The Whisperers (1967).

Edith Evans was born in London, the daughter of Edward Evans, a civil servant, and his wife, Caroline Ellen Foster. She was educated at St Michael's Church of England School, Pimlico, before being apprenticed at the age of 15 in 1903 as a milliner.

Her first stage appearance was with Miss Massey's Shakespeare Players in the role of Viola in Twelfth Night in October 1910. In 1912 she was discovered by the noted producer William Poel and made her first professional appearance for Poel in August of that year, playing the role of Gautami in a 6th century Hindu classic, Sakuntala. She received much attention with her performance as Cressida in Troilus and Cressida in London and subsequently at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Kenneth Charles Williams (22 February 1926 – 15 April 1988) was an English comic actor and comedian. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the Carry On films, and appeared in numerous British television shows, and radio comedies with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne.

Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February 1926 in Bingfield Street, King's Cross, London, the son of Louisa ("Lou" or "Louie") and Charles Williams, a barber. Williams had a half-sister, Alice Patricia, born before Louie had met Charlie Williams. He was educated at Lyulph Stanley School, later becoming apprenticed as a draughtsman to a mapmaker. He joined the Army in 1944 at 18. As part of the Royal Engineers survey section in Bombay, he first performed on stage in the Combined Services Entertainment alongside Stanley Baxter and Peter Nichols. He was a voracious reader able to quote poems or literary extracts from memory. Excerpts from the diaries he kept as an adult show he adored his supportive, theatrical mother but despised his homophobic, morose and selfish father.

Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH (/ˈɡiːlɡʊd/; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937. He was known for his beautiful speaking of verse and particularly for his warm and expressive voice, which his colleague Sir Alec Guinness likened to "a silver trumpet muffled in silk". Gielgud is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.

John Gielgud was born in South Kensington in London to Kate Terry and Frank Gielgud. He was of theatrical lineage on his mother's side, being the grandson of actress Kate Terry, whose actor-siblings included Ellen Terry, Marion Terry and Fred Terry.

Gielgud's Catholic father, Franciszek Giełgud, born in 1880, was a descendant of a Polish noble family residing at a manor in a town called Giełgudyszki (now Gelgaudiškis in Marijampolė County, Lithuania). In his autobiography, Gielgud states repeatedly and clearly that his father was Polish Catholic, and mentions Gelgaudiškis as being his ancestral home whence his family and their surname originated.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ( /ˈtʃɑrlz ˈlʌtwɪdʒ ˈdɒdʒsən/ CHARLZ LUDT-wij DOJ-sən; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ KARR-əl), was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand.

Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin. His grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge.

Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE (24 October 1882 – 9 June 1976) was a British actress.

She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral. She was educated at Rochester Grammar School for Girls, and first trained as a classical pianist, making weekly visits to London for music lessons at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

She gave her first public performance as a pianist at the age of 11, but in 1899 was forced to give up playing owing to piano cramp. At the instigation of her brother, the author Russell Thorndike, she then trained as an actress.

At the age of 21 she was offered her first professional contract: a tour of the United States with the actor-manager Ben Greet's company. She made her first stage appearance in Greet's 1904 production of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. She went on to tour the U.S. in Shakespearean repertory for four years, playing some 112 roles.

In 1908 Sybil was spotted by the playwright George Bernard Shaw when she understudied the leading role of Candida in a tour directed by Shaw himself. There she also met her future husband, Lewis Casson. They were married in December 1908, and had four children - John (1909–1999), Christopher (1912–1996), Mary (1914–2009) and Ann (1915–1990).