Every now and then you find yourself asking of a one-time star of the stage: "where are they now?" (The answer, usually, is working in television). But then they return to their roots, and you ask the question the other way around: "where have they been?"

BBC London Online celebrates the reappearance of performers who have been absent awhile (or longer) from the stage:

Ben Cross: Though he began his career on the London stage, where his credits included playing Billy Flynn in Chicago (not the current hit revival but the London premiere of the show in 1979), it was the 1981 film Chariots of Fire that propelled him to fame and a career in Hollywood, mostly in mini-series for television. Now 54, he returns to the West End as part of the 25th cast of Art, beginning performances on 27 May.

Linda Thorson: Best known for starring as Tara King in television's The Avengers, Linda Thorson has appeared regularly on the West End and Broadway stages over the years, but though she was in a Sondheim musical revue at Chichester last year, she's not been seen in London for ages. Now, though based in New York, she's making amends, appearing in a supporting role as mother to Jenny Seagrove's cuckolded wife in The Constant Wife at the Apollo.

Liz Robertson:  As the National Theatre production of My Fair Lady continues its successful transfer at Drury Lane, Liz Robertson - who starred as Eliza Doolittle in Cameron Mackintosh's 1979 revival of the show and subsequently married the show's lyricist, Alan Jay Lerner - is currently again joining forces with Mackintosh to play Madame Giry in his long-running production of The Phantom of the Opera. It's great to have her back in the West End, from where she has been absent for too many years.

Clare Higgins: One of our finest yet most underrated stage actresses, Clare Higgins won the 1995 Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance in a National Theatre revival of Sweet Bird of Youth, but has mostly been absent from the London stage since then, instead giving some terrific performances in regional productions of Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Bristol), The Seagull (Leeds) and The Secret Rapture (Chichester). Now, however, she's back at the National, in typically fine form in Nicholas Wright's Vincent In Brixton.

Sylvestra Le Touzel: Last seen in the West End in a critically mauled 1999 revival of Coward's Hay Fever, Le Touzel was once one of our most promising young stage actresses, but latterly she's been seen more often on television, with regular appearances in Dr Who, Lovejoy, The Professionals and Beast amongst others. Now she's joining Neal Pearson in a new production of Michael Frayn's Benefactors, at the Albery Theatre from 19 June.

Take a Thames Tour of Rotherhithe including the home of London's whaling and timber trades

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