Charles Murray Higson, English author, actor, and comedian, was born 3rd July 1958. He attended Sevenoaks School, and later went on to the University of East Anglia, where he formed a band called The Higsons (alongside David Cummings and Terry Edwards), of which he was lead singer for 6 years. After a brief stint as a decorator, Charlie went into partnership with Paul Whitehouse and also began to write for Harry Enfield.
Emma Kennedy, English actress, writer and television presenter, was born 28th May 1967 in Corby, Northamptonshire. Emma attended Hitchin Girls’ School, and then went on to Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford, where she met and worked in a comedy group called the Seven Raymonds with Richard Herring and Stewart Lee at the Oxford Revue. Despite these early years of performance, after she graduated, Emma trained as a solicitor, which she practised until 1995.
Christopher John Sansom, British crime writer and author of the much-acclaimed Shardlake detective series, was born in 1952 in Edinburgh. An only child, C.J Sansom grew up “in a very conservative household, with a small and capital C”, so his interest in politics in his teens, leading him to a “radical, independent socialist position” was unexpected, but something that he has retained ever since.
Stuart MacBride was born in Dumbarton, and moved to Aberdeen at two years old with his parents and two younger brothers, where he attended Marchburn Primary School and then Middlefield Academy in later years. The family eventually moved to Westhill. After studying architecture at Herriot Watt University in Edinburgh but not particularly enjoying it, Stuart’s following career spanned from working offshore, graphic design, acting, being an undertaker, web design, a studio manager, and computer programming.