Ricky Dene Gervais (/dʒərˈveɪz/; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter.

Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with frequent collaborator Stephen Merchant. In addition to writing and directing the shows, Gervais played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. Gervais has also starred in a number of Hollywood films, assuming leading roles in Ghost Town and The Invention of Lying. He has performed on four sell-out stand-up comedy tours, written the best-selling Flanimals book series and starred with Merchant and Karl Pilkington in the most downloaded podcast in the world as of March 2009,The Ricky Gervais Show.

He has won multiple awards and honours, including seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and the 2006 Rose d'Or, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007 he was voted the 11th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 3rd greatest stand-up comic. In 2010 he was named on the TIME 100 list of the world's most influential people.

Todd Anthony Shaw (born April 28, 1966), better known by the stage name Too Short (stylized as Too $hort), is an American rapper, producer, and actor who started his career at the age of fourteen in Oakland, California.

In the early 1980s, Shaw produced custom songs (called "special requests") for people with his high school friend, Freddy B. In 1985, Too Short had his first release, Don't Stop Rappin' which, along with the following three releases, featured raw, simple drum beats from a LinnDrum drum machine. In the early 1990s his beats came from mostly a TR-808 and from mid-to-late 2000s, a TR-909 was used. In 2005, Too Short and Freddie B. formed the label Dangerous Music to regionally distribute his music. Dangerous Music became Short Records, and then Up All Nite Records. With his 1989 release, Life Is...Too Short, he began used replayed established funk riffs (rather than samples) with his beats.

Mark Kermode (born 2 July 1963) is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons. He also co-presents the BBC Two arts programme The Culture Show and discusses other branches of the arts for the BBC Two programme Newsnight Review. Kermode writes and presents a film-related video blog for the BBC.

Kermode, born Mark Fairey in Barnet, North London, England, attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent boys' school in Elstree, a few years ahead of comedians Sacha Baron Cohen, Matt Lucas and David Baddiel and in the same year as actor Jason Isaacs. He was raised as a Methodist, and is now a member of the Church of England.

Mark Fairey's parents divorced when he was in his early 20s and he subsequently changed his surname to his GP mother's maiden name by deed poll. (Neither of them is related to the literary critic Frank Kermode.)