Eric Idle: the Python who made comedy sing
From Cambridge Footlights to Monty Python, the Rutles and Spamalot, Eric Idle built a career around verbal invention and musical comedy.
Read the entrySearch
2,879 entries
Jennifer Saunders: the comic force behind Edina Monsoon
From The Comic Strip to French and Saunders and Absolutely Fabulous, Jennifer Saunders has shaped British television comedy as a performer and writer.
Read the entry
Dawn French: comedy built on character and collaboration
From French and Saunders to The Vicar of Dibley, Dawn French has helped shape British television comedy while building a career across theatre, film and books.
Read the entry
Ricky Gervais: the British comedy of awkwardness and ambition
From Seona Dancing and Xfm to The Office and After Life, Gervais built a career around exposing the gap between how people see themselves and how others see them.
Read the entry
Rowan Atkinson: from Blackadder to Mr Bean
An engineering graduate who became one of Britain’s most recognisable comic performers, Atkinson has worked across sketch, sitcom, film and stage.
Read the entry
Peter Sellers: the many voices of a British comic original
From The Goon Show to Inspector Clouseau and Dr Strangelove, Sellers built a career on vocal invention, physical precision and characters who rarely knew how absurd they were.
Read the entry
John Cleese: the making of a singular British comic voice
From Cambridge Footlights to Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, Cleese helped reshape British television comedy.
Read the entry
Andrew Simms: bringing ecological limits into economics
Economist and environmentalist Andrew Simms has linked questions of environmental responsibility with economic policy through his work on ecological debt, the Green New Deal and sustainable prosperity.
Read the entry
Charlie Chaplin: the Londoner who reshaped screen comedy
From music-hall performer to international film-maker, Chaplin built the Tramp into a figure of comedy and pathos—and made his London childhood part of cinema history.
Read the entry
Fiona Harvey and the long work of climate reporting
From technology news to The Guardian’s environmental desk, Harvey has reported on climate change, international negotiations and the people shaping them.
Read the entry
John Vidal: reporting on the environment for The Guardian
For decades, John Vidal brought environmental questions into British journalism, reporting on climate change, pollution and the communities affected by environmental damage.
Read the entry
Polly Higgins: the barrister who campaigned to make ecocide a crime
The Scottish lawyer left the Bar to argue that severe environmental destruction should carry criminal responsibility under international law.
Read the entry
Sara Maitland: fiction, faith and the search for silence
The British writer’s novels, short stories and reflections on solitude draw on religious questions, myth and the places in which she has lived.
Read the entry
Paul Ekins: economics in the service of sustainability
The British academic and former Green Party member has spent his career examining how economic prosperity can be made compatible with environmental limits.
Read the entry
Mayer Hillman: transport, health and the climate debate
The British architect and town planner used research and public argument to connect everyday travel with children’s freedom, public health and the environmental cost of carbon emissions.
Read the entry
Bill McKibben and the climate movement in Britain
The American writer and activist co-founded 350.org, whose campaigns have connected climate advocacy across borders and reached British institutions and communities.
Read the entry
Alastair McIntosh: land, community and environmental ethics
The Scottish writer and academic has linked land reform to questions of power, spirituality and the responsibilities communities hold towards their environments.
Read the entry
Ian McHarg: planning with nature
The Scottish landscape architect made ecological thinking central to planning, from his influential book Design with Nature to projects in the United States.
Read the entry
Barbara Young: conservation leadership in Britain
Barbara Young led the RSPB and the Environment Agency, working across conservation, environmental management and sustainable development.
Read the entry
Edward Goldsmith: the environmental thinker behind The Ecologist
The Anglo-French editor and philosopher helped bring ecological arguments into public debate through a magazine, a widely read manifesto and sustained campaigning.
Read the entry
John Elkington: changing how business measures success
The British author and entrepreneur helped bring environmental and social questions into debates about corporate performance, from early green consumer guides to the influential triple bottom line.
Read the entry
Tim Jackson: rethinking prosperity in a finite world
The British ecological economist has spent decades examining how economies might support human wellbeing without depending on endless growth.
Read the entry
Fiona Reynolds: conservation, access and the National Trust
As director-general of the National Trust from 2001 to 2012, Fiona Reynolds was associated with an approach linking historic places, public access and environmental care.
Read the entry
Rosie Boycott: journalism, feminism and London’s food agenda
From co-founding Spare Rib to editing national newspapers and chairing London Food, Rosie Boycott’s career has crossed journalism and public life.
Read the entry
Clare Lewington: environmental education and local action
Lewington is associated with practical sustainability education, renewable-energy advocacy and community campaigns, linking environmental concerns with local participation.
Read the entry
Jane Goodall: the researcher who changed how we see chimpanzees
From decades of fieldwork in Tanzania to a worldwide conservation movement, the English primatologist made animal behaviour and habitat protection central to public debate.
Read the entry
Miriam Rothschild: the scientist who made fleas matter
A leading authority on fleas, Miriam Rothschild also studied insects and plants, restored hay meadows and championed conservation in Britain.
Read the entry
Tony Juniper: campaigning for nature and climate action
From Friends of the Earth to the chairmanship of Natural England, Tony Juniper has worked to put conservation and the value of nature into public debate.
Read the entry
Jonathon Porritt: making environmentalism part of public life
From the Ecology Party and Friends of the Earth to Forum for the Future, Porritt has worked to bring environmental concerns into politics, business and public debate.
Read the entry
David Bellamy: botanist, broadcaster and conservation campaigner
From the Torrey Canyon oil spill to television nature programmes and conservation work in County Durham, Bellamy made botany a vivid part of British public life.
Read the entry
Simon King: a life filming Britain’s wildlife
From early television work in Bristol to live broadcasts from wildlife sites across the British Isles, Simon King has spent decades bringing natural history to the screen.
Read the entry
John Vidal: reporting the human consequences of environmental change
The Guardian’s former environment editor wrote about pollution, climate change and the communities living with their consequences.
Read the entry
Peter Scott: art, wildfowl and a new conservation movement
The painter, broadcaster and founder of Slimbridge’s wildfowl trust brought wildlife into public view and helped shape international conservation.
Read the entry
Tim Smit: from Heligan to the Eden Project
The Dutch-born British entrepreneur helped bring two Cornish heritage and environmental projects to public attention, including the Eden Project’s biomes at a former china clay pit.
Read the entry
Kate Humble: bringing wildlife and science to British television
From Springwatch and Animal Park to leading the RSPB and running a farm in Wales, Kate Humble has made nature a continuing subject of public attention.
Read the entry
Richard Mabey: writing nature into everyday life
Writer and broadcaster Richard Mabey has explored the ties between nature and culture, from wild plants and urban habitats to the landscapes of recovery.
Read the entry
Bill Oddie: comedy, birds and British wildlife television
A comedian and lifelong birder, Oddie brought natural history to millions through programmes including Springwatch, while supporting conservation organisations and writing about birds.
Read the entry
Polly Higgins: the lawyer who put ecocide on the agenda
The Scottish barrister left legal practice to campaign for ecocide to be recognised as an international crime, developing a cause that continues to shape debate about environmental law.
Read the entry
Mark Carwardine: wildlife conservation through words and pictures
The British conservationist has taken endangered species from remote expeditions to radio, television, books and wildlife tours.
Read the entry
Sara Parkin: from green politics to sustainability education
The Scottish nurse and political activist helped organise the Green Party and co-founded Forum for the Future, later making sustainability literacy a focus of her work in education.
Read the entry