It’s a quirk of the acting profession that someone can fly under the radar for years and then suddenly be catapulted into the limelight. Nigel Lindsay's impeccable record in contemporary plays at the Donmar, Almeida and Royal Court has left all but keen theatre-goers with only a dim sense of his distinctive profile. He is currently performing his most high-profile role yet - unless you count the doltish white Muslim jihadist Barry in Four Lions. But one thing will not change. To play the grouchy Scottish ogre in Shrek the Musical (in which he's been coached by his old mate David Tennant), Lindsay will spend 90 minutes before every performance having prosthetic make-up applied. When he walks out of the stage door, the junior hordes won’t know him from the doorman.

It’s a quirk of the acting profession that someone can fly under the radar for years and then suddenly be catapulted into the limelight. Nigel Lindsay's impeccable record in contemporary plays at the Donmar, Almeida and Royal Court has left all but keen theatre-goers with only a dim sense of his distinctive profile. He is currently performing his most high-profile role yet - unless you count the doltish white Muslim jihadist Barry in Four Lions. But one thing will not change. To play the grouchy Scottish ogre in Shrek the Musical (in which he's been coached by his old mate David Tennant), Lindsay will spend 90 minutes before every performance having prosthetic make-up applied. When he walks out of the stage door, the junior hordes won’t know him from the doorman.

Seasick Steve Wold (b 1941) has achieved widespread popularity over the last five years with his raw, rootsy, blues-flavoured sounds. He's also renowned for his customised guitars, such as one featured on his new album, You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks, that's made from Morris Minor hubcaps, and for his stage patter which combines US Southern charm with hobo lore and anecdotes.

A potent combination of growling electronics, sub-bass frequencies and expressive vocals seems to have moved back to the centre of the UK's pop landscape in recent months, whether via the likes of James Blake, Magnetic Man or even the unlikely sound of Britney Spears appropriating dubstep signifiers on her new record. All of which makes the arrival in the UK of Canadian duo Bonjay seem very timely indeed.

Nicholas Parsons has been an actor – he is most adamant that he is first and foremost an actor – for almost 70 years, so it’s not surprising, given the erratic nature of his profession, that he has been obliged to assume a number of alternative guises over the years from leading man to comedy sidekick to quiz master. Yet despite this, he is no chameleon. He has somehow managed to pull off the trick of being supremely adaptable whilst remaining resolutely true to himself – you’ll never catch Parsons dropping his aitches or wearing age-inappropriate clothing. Always dapper, slightly prim and a little aloof, he is the consummate professional and, at the age of 87, more in demand than ever.

A tall and exceptionally striking Valkyrie of a blonde, Alison Balsom (b 1978) is the polar antithesis of a hard-drinking, slightly tubby, very male trumpeter from central casting. For the photoshoots which fetch up on her CD sleeves, and public performances such as Last Night of the Proms in 2009 and this month’s Classic Brits, she pours herself elegantly into a series of dresses in the style of a hot young violinist kidnapped by the marketing department. But there is of course a great deal more to Balsom.

Moby (b 1965) has been a presence on the dance scene and in global clubland for two decades. He is best known for the multimillion-selling 1999 album Play which, among other things, combined lush electronic orchestration with old field recordings of a cappella blues shouters. Moby's musical career, however, began at least a decade earlier.

One of Britain’s most esteemed and influential folk artists, Martin Carthy (b 1941) celebrates his 70th birthday on 21 May. The occasion is being marked by the release of a two-disc career overview, Martin Carthy Essential, and next weekend's celebratory concert at the Southbank Centre, London. Much as he obviously appreciates the gesture, there's an unmistakable sense that this self-effacing man would be just as happy spending the night crammed into a howff, eyeballing his audience from a distance of no more than 10 paces.

The Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury preserves the story of the Foundling Hospital, established in 1739 by Thomas Coram, the artist Hogarth and the composer Handel. At the end of April, American country singer Mary Gauthier performed The Foundling, a concept album telling of her birth and adoption in 1962 and the attempted reunion with her birth mother some 45 years later. Spiky-haired, in a black tee, waistcoat and black jeans, and sporting Lennon-style tinted specs, Gauthier cut a striking figure amidst the Rococo splendour of the Museum’s Picture Gallery, the lean, indomitable singer armed with a guitar and songs of infant abandonment and adult experience, beneath Hogarth’s portraits of the great and good of 18th-century London.

Christopher Eccleston’s performances have a raw-boned, visceral quality which makes him a sometimes unsettling - but always compelling - actor to watch. Since his big break in the harrowing Let Him Have It (1991), playing Derek Bentley who at 19 was the last man to be hanged in Britain, Eccleston has played Hamlet at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and worked alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest names including Kate Winslet (Jude, 1996), Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, 1998) and Nicole Kidman (The Others, 2001).

Comedy writer John Sullivan has died aged 64, writes Adam Sweeting, after spending six weeks in intensive care battling viral pneumonia. The creator of several hit comedy series for the BBC, Sullivan is guaranteed immortality for his masterpiece, Only Fools and Horses, which ran from 1981 to 2002. Featuring the escapades of the wide-boy south-London brothers, Rodney and Del Boy Trotter (Nicholas Lyndhurst and David Jason), it became one of the best-loved British comedies ever screened, and also gained a substantial international following. A 2004 poll named Only Fools... as the best British sitcom of all time, and the show's 1996 Christmas Special scored a ratings record of 24 million viewers.