Celebrities including Ant and Dec, Sir Elton John and Simon Cowell share the canvas with the Roman gladiator Spartacus in a new painting that went on show yesterday.

The 7ft by 5ft painting depicts Welsh-born actor Andy Whitfield, who plays the gladiator in the television series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, surrounded by famous faces.

Other celebrities featured in the painting by Paul Karslake include Louis Walsh, Joanna Lumley, Angelina Jolie and Gordon Brown.

Scottish actor John Hannah, who plays the owner of a gladiator training school in the show, said the story had modern-day parallels.

He said: "I think we all like that historical world, and we want to know where our society has come from and who we are, and what we were without the constraints of civilisation.

"I think those kind of people still exist - they're just dressed in suits and pinstripe shirts now."

The painting is being exhibited at Marylebone Station, central London.

The story of the gladiator who inspired a slave uprising against the Romans was famously made into a 1960 Hollywood film starring Kirk Douglas in the lead role.