Robin Soans (born 1947) is an actor, and a playwright specialising in verbatim and documentary plays. These plays include Across the Divide (2007); A State Affair (2000) which looked at life on a Bradford estate, produced by Out of Joint theatre company; The Arab Israeli Cookbook (Gate Theatre 2004); Talking to Terrorists (Out of Joint theatre company and Royal Court Theatre); and Life After Scandal (Hampstead Theatre). Other plays include Bet Noir (Young Vic 1986); Sinners and Saints (The Croydon Warehouse) and Will and Testament (The Oval House).

He wrote Mixed Up North for LAMDA theatre school in 2008, about a youth theatre group created as a means to unite divided racial communities in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley; in 2009 it was performed professionally in a co-production between Out of Joint theatre company and Bolton Octagon Theatre.

As an actor, he has appeared at The National Theatre, The Royal Court, The Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare's Globe. He also starred in Bill Douglas's epic film of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Comrades.

Louise Jameson (born 20 April 1951 in Wanstead, London) is an English actress, best known for playing Leela, the leather-clad barbarian warrior companion of the fourth Doctor in Doctor Who. Jameson has also appeared on Emmerdale (as Sharon Crossthwaite), The Omega Factor (as Dr. Anne Reynolds), Tenko (as Blanche Simmons), Bergerac (as Susan Young) and EastEnders (as Rosa di Marco). She recently worked on BBC Scotland soap River City as Viv Roberts and is now a regular in Doc Martin.

Jameson attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and spent two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, Summerfolk, and Blithe Spirit. In 1995 she appeared in the RSC production of Botho Strauß's The Park. Other stage appearances include the first production of Peter Nichols's Passion Play produced at the Aldwych Theatre, London, in 1981.

She reprised the character of Leela in the charity special Dimensions in Time and for the Doctor Who audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions.

Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE (born 15 June 1949) is an English actor, musician, writer and theatre director. He is also currently a judge on Popstar to Operastar.

Callow was born in Streatham, London, England, UK, the son of Yvonne Mary (née Guise), a secretary, and Neil Francis Callow, a businessman. His father was of English and French descent and his mother was of Danish and German ancestry. He was brought up Roman Catholic. Callow attended the London Oratory School and then went on to study at Queen's University Belfast ('Queen's') in Northern Ireland before giving up his degree course to go into acting at the Drama Centre London.^{[citation needed]}

Callow's immersion in the theatre began after he wrote a fan letter to Sir Laurence Olivier, the Artistic Director of the National Theatre, and received a response suggesting he join their box office staff. It was while watching actors rehearse that he realised he wanted to act.

Callow made his stage debut in 1973, appearing in The Thrie Estates at the Assembly Rooms Theatre, Edinburgh. In the early 1970s he joined the Gay Sweatshop theatre company and performed in Martin Sherman's critically acclaimed Passing By. In 1977 he took various parts in the Joint Stock Theatre Company's production of Epsom Downs and in 1979 he starred in Snoo Wilson's The Soul of the White Ant at the Soho Poly.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, née Roberts (born 13 October 1925) is a British politician and the longest-serving (1979–1990) British prime minister of the 20th century, and the only woman ever to have held the post. A Soviet journalist nicknamed her the "Iron Lady", which later became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As prime minister, she implemented conservative policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.

Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975 Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition, as well as the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became prime minister after winning the 1979 general election.

After entering 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives to reverse what she perceived as Britain's precipitous national decline. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax") was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership.

Dame Helen Mirren, DBE (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; 26 July 1945) is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.

Mirren was born Helen Lydia Mironoff in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Chiswick, West London. Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov (1913–1980), was of Russian origin, and her mother, Kitty (née Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda Rogers; 1909–1996), was English. Mirren's paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Tsarist Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating an arms deal in Britain, when he and his family were stranded during the Russian Revolution. The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family.

His son, Helen Mirren's father, changed the family name to the Scottish-sounding Mirren in the 1950s and became known as Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, and later drove a cab and was a driving-test examiner, before becoming a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother was from West Ham, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".