"Actor: David Richards"

• Porterhouse Blue | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £17.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Based on Tom Sharpe’s satirical novel and set in a fictional, all-male Cambridge College, 1987’s Porterhouse Blue is a crusty delight. Ian Richardson stars as the austere moderniser who takes over as master of Porterhouse with a view to bringing in radical changes; David Jason is Skullion, head porter for 45 years and a bulldog-style traditionalist.Porterhouse Blue is a wonderfully grotesque and not inaccurate depiction of an Oxbridge college that has set itself resolutely and decadently against the modern world. Crammed with hoggish, port-swilling dons who are more concerned that the college stay "head of the river" than with academic achievement, the highlight of Porterhouse’s year is the Founder’s Feast, in which students and tutors gorge debauchedly on roast swan stuffed with widgeon, to the horror of the new vegetarian master. Jason’s Skullion looks on approvingly: he’s a stickler for Porterhouse’s inverted values, disapproving, for instance, of student Zipser (John Sessions), the only fellow at the college actually there to work. When the master eventually fires Skullion, the forces of traditionalism gather in sympathy and attempt their revenge.Unfolding over 190 leisurely minutes, Porterhouse Blue is an elegantly turned comedy in which practically every morsel of dialogue is to be savoured for its delicious tang. Jason and Richardson are reliably excellent in what is an overall exhibition of British TV thespianism at its finest. --David Stubbs

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Poirot's dentist Morley is found dead in surgery. It appears to be a simple case of suicide but why has Morley's secretary received a hoax phone call claiming her Aunt was ill? And who is the woman with the broken shoe buckle masquerading as Miss Sainsbury Seale? When a Mr Amberiotis is found dead in his hotel room with an overdose of Novocaine Poirot begins to assemble the evidence...

• Angel - Season 2 | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £45.88   |  Saving you £-10.89 (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Angel continues to chronicle the well-oiled machine that is Angel Investigations led by the centuries old vampire with a conscience Angel (David Boreanaz) along with fellow Sunnydale escapee and aspiring actress Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) a fallen Watcher. As they take it one demon at a time the team is joined by the streetwise renegade vampire hunter Charles Gunn (J. August Richards). Epsiodes comprise: 1. Judgement 2. Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been 3. First Impressions 4. Untouched 5. Dear Boy 6. Guise Will Be Guise 7. Darla 8. The Shroud Of Rahmon 9. The Trial 10. Reunion 11. Redefinition 12. Blood Money 13. Happy Anniversary 14. The Thin Dead Line 15. Reprise 16. Epiphany 17. Disharmony 18. Dead End 19. Belonging 20. Over The Rainbow 21. Through The Looking Glass 22. There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb

• Angel - Complete Collection - Limited Edition | DVD | (19/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £139.99

  Season 1: The vampire Angelus, now known as Angel, has a human soul, but committed terrible crimes in the past. Seeking forgiveness and trying to redeem himself, he moves from Sunnydale (and a relationship with Buffy Summers, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) to Los Angeles, where he helps the downtrodden by thwarting the supernatural creatures that prey on them. Season 2: Angel continues to seek redemption, but a fatal mistake makes him realize that racking up the body count isn't the way to go. So with a renewed sense of purpose and Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn at his side, Angel sets out to make the streets of Los Angeles a little safer for everyone - unaware that Wolfram & Hart has summoned someone from his past to make sure he fails. Season 3: Even as Angel mourns the death of Buffy, Darla makes her way to L.A. with a mysterious new life growing within her. Now thrust into a role he never imagined, Angel needs the assistance of the Angel Investigations team more than ever. But while Cordelia, Gunn and Fred rally round the new dad, an ancient and deadly prophecy convinces Wesley to commit the ultimate betrayal. Season 4: With both Angel and Cordelia still missing, Fred, Gunn and Connor try to keep Angel Investigations running while they search for their friends. Ironically, the man who everyone believes betrayed Angel is the one who finally comes to Angel's rescue. Then Cordelia mysteriously reappears with no memory of her life or her friends. Confused, she chooses to take refuge with Connor—setting into motion events that will alter their lives forever. Season 5: The Angel Investigations team is stunned when the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart give them control of the L.A. office. The gang quickly moves in, and although everyone is delighted at the amazing resources they now have at their command, they can't stop wondering what the catch is. But the biggest mystery of all revolves around a small package Angel receives containing an amulet and a handful of dust—which coalesces into a very-much-alive Spike.

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Double Sin / The Adventure Of The Cheap Flat | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £9.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (2.46%)   |  RRP £9.99

  David Suchet and Hugh Fraser team up again as the great detective Hercule Poirot and trusty Captain Hastings for more engaging adventures in Double Sin / The Adventure of the Cheap Flat. The Adventure of the Cheap Flat blends international intrigue with the gentle comic relief of a foolish American FBI agent. Double Sin contains a novel twist: Poirot announces his retirement and Hastings is left to solve the case by himself. The cast has the easy rapport of old friends and as always Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector Japp and Pauline Moran as the remarkable Miss Lemon are welcome companions. Brew some tea, check it for arsenic and get ready for a thoroughly entertaining evening. --Ali Davis

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Adventure Of The Italian Nobleman / The Chocolate Box | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £8.13   |  Saving you £1.86 (22.88%)   |  RRP £9.99

  More intriguing investigations for Agatha Christie's famed Belgian detective... The Adventure Of The Italian Nobleman: Hastings decides to buy an elegant car from Mr Vizzini's showroom. Whilst he is there Vizzini receives a message saying that his time is up. Later that day the messenger is found dead in his flat and Poirot and Hastings are drawn into the gangland underworld of London's Little Italy in a baffling case of elaborate blackmail. The Chocolate Box: Poirot is in Brussels accompanying Japp on a trip to receive the 'Branch d'Or' for services to Belgium. They meet up with some former colleagues who still have memories of a case that has apparently remained unresolved for twenty years.

• Angel: Complete Season 3 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £13.99   |  Saving you £66.00 (471.77%)   |  RRP £79.99

  In the third series of Angel the titular vampire with a soul was forced to stand alone thanks to the (temporary) death of his beloved Buffy and her show's move to a new network, with no crossover between the two allowed. He returns from seeking peace in a demon-haunted monastery to find the LA Angel Investigations team fighting supernatural crime in his absence. Fred is still haunted by the nightmare dimension from which they rescued her; Cordelia's visions get ever more painful and debilitating. The schemes of the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart become every more imaginative and dragon lady Lilah Morgan becomes even more of an enemy when lusting after Angel. Unbelievably, Darla, Angel's vampire sire and lover, turns up, pregnant with his child and is tortured by inexplicable motherly feelings as well as a raging thirst for human blood. For a few episodes things go pretty well--but Angel's enemies, both those he has made in his quest for redemption and those he made when he was unadulterated evil, are still out there. Stephanie Romanov comes into her silky own in this series, making Lilah Morgan all the more seductively evil because she is clear about the choices she has made; the satanic law-firm of Wolfram and Hart are this show's most inspired creation. As the series moves to its close, Wesley (Alexis Denisof) has hard choices to make. The devastating climax is compulsive viewing and this series also contains one of the most impressive single episodes of the entire show: in "Waiting in the Wings" writer, director and creator Joss Whedon comes up with a classic ghost story as Angel and his crew go to the ballet and find a performance that is literally timeless. On the DVD: Angel, Series 3 DVD box set is generously stocked with extra features--a season overview, commentaries on three episodes, a documentary on the way scripts are transferred to screen, and an overview of the story of the doomed vampire Darla. Of especial interest to fans are two deleted scenes--one from the ballet episode "Waiting in the Wings", in which Amy Acker (Fred) and Alexis Denisof (Wesley) dance a pas de deux at once touching and hilarious, and the other a hilarious scene from "Cordy", the cute situation comedy in which Cordelia stars in an alternate universe. --Roz Kaveney

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Peril At End House Parts 1 And 2 | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-3.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  While the little Belgian detective and his English sidekick are enjoying their holidays on the Cornish Riviera a chance meeting with Miss Buckley of nearby End House provides Poirot with the stimulation on which his little grey cells thrive.

• Angel: Complete Season 2 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  It is with this second series that Angel, the darker Los Angeles mean-streets spin-off from Buffy, comes entirely into its own. Angel, the vampire with a soul and rather too much hair gel, is driven partly by his need for atonement and partly by his anger at the manipulations of the satanic law firm Wolfram and Hart, especially the morally equivocal Lindsey (Christian Kane). At the end of the previous season, they set his emotional destruction in motion by bringing back from hell Darla, the vampire who turned him, whom he loved for centuries and then killed to save Buffy. Julie Benz's soft-voiced passion--"God doesn't want you, but I still do"--makes her a perfect tragic foil for David Boreanaz's "billowy coat King of Pain" hero and mid-season offers further cause for Angel's despairing rage at his failure to save Darla from being turned vampire again. There is a nice balance of comedy, horror and the starkly tragic here--fake swamis, accursed shrouds, sexually abused telekinetic assassins all come into the mix along with Angel's gang of sidekicks--pedantic Wesley, abrasive Gunn, flighty clairvoyant Cordelia--and a new and wonderfully improbable character who starts as a running joke and becomes so much more--the Host (Andy Hallett), a green demon with red horns, eyes and hair, who sees into the souls of those who sing karaoke at his bar. And in a four-part finale, the group's friendship with the green karaoke demon Lorne sends them off to his home dimension to rescue Cordelia, right wrongs and acquire an important new character. On the DVD: Angel, Season 2 on disc presents all the episodes in their original 16x9 widescreen format (2.35:1), which enables viewers to see shots as they were originally conceived, for example in impressive moments like the march of the four vampires through a burning Shanghai or the climaxes of the mediaeval Pylea sequence. The sound is a sumptuous Dolby Surround 2.0. The first Pylea episode, "Over the Rainbow", has a commentary by its director Fred Keller; the 1959 flashback episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" has a commentary by writer Tim Minnear. There are also featurettes on the set designs--specifically concentrating on the huge hotel set which dominates Season 2. --Roz Kaveney

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Mysterious Affair At Styles | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Another intriguing investigation for Agatha Christie's famed Belgian detective... The Mysterious Affair At Styles was Agatha Christie's debut novel and was first published in 1920. The story introduced Poirot her eccentric and fastidious creation to an enthusiastic public. Lieutenant Hastings is recovering from his war injuries when he receives an invitation to visit his old friends the Cavendish family at Styles St Mary. Staying nearby as guests of the Cavendishs' are a group of Belgian refugees including much to Hastings' surprise his old acquaintance from the Belgian Police Hercule Poirot. Before long the pair are pitting their little grey cells against family machinations and manipulation; murder and mayhem; money and mendacity.

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook / Murder In The Mews | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £4.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (100.60%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook: Mrs Todd from Clapham comes to ask Poirot if he will help her to find her cook Eliza who has disappeared. Poirot is at first insulted by such a trivial request for his talents but then decides the case could be intriguing. Murder In The Mews: Chief Inspector Japp calls on Poirot to assist in the investigation of the suicide of a young woman Mrs Allen who has been found in her London mews home on Guy Fawkes night. Poirot soon suspects that Mrs Allen is the victim of foul play.

• Glastonbury | DVD | (04/06/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  This documentary follows 30 years of Britain's best loved music festival and features Coldplay, Blur, David Bowie and many more.

• The Simple Life - Season 1 | DVD | (19/04/2004) from £5.92   |  Saving you £10.07 (63.00%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The hook of The Simple Life is irresistible: two wealthy, pampered young women go from upper-crust Los Angeles to an Arkansas farm to prove that they can survive without their mobile phones and credit cards. As hotel heiress Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie (daughter of pop star Lionel) blithely move in with a farm family, the Ledings, the culture clash immediately becomes a train wreck; when asked to pluck chickens, Richie declares, "I'm not plucking anything but my eyebrows." They try to work a series of jobs (at a dairy farm, a fast-food joint and a livestock auction), but they possess not a jot of work ethic, nor any sense of the consequences of failure. Like the girls themselves, this 2003 reality show becomes fascinating and repellent, comic and horrifying. It's like watching alien beings trying to masquerade as people. --Bret Fetzer

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £10.09   |  Saving you £-0.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd opens with a retired Poirot (David Suchet) cursing vegetable marrows in his country garden. When his old friend is found stabbed in the neck, Poirot begins an investigation that reunites him with Chief Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) and uncovers a chain of furtive phone calls and secret romances. Unfortunately, the restructuring necessary to adapt the story from text to film takes away some of the shock value of Christie's original ending, which caused quite a controversy when the book was first published in 1926. --Larisa Lomacky Moore

• The Devil's Violinist | DVD | (22/06/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

• Angel: Complete Season 5 | DVD | (21/02/2005) from £49.99   |  Saving you £30.00 (60.01%)   |  RRP £79.99

  Lives were upended--and some co-opted--in the fifth and final season of Angel, as the denizens of Angel Investigations found themselves taking on one of their scariest endeavors ever: corporate life. After making a literal deal with the devil (or something distinctly devil-like), Angel (David Boreanaz) moved his team from their crumbling hotel to the high-rise digs of law-firm-from-hell Wolfram & Hart, his reasoning being they could better fight the forces of evil from the inside, and with more resources to boot. Clever maneuvering or easy rationalization? A few members of Angel's team accused him of selling out (as did a number of viewers), but as with most of the show's previous four seasons, Angel somehow took a dubious premise and mined it for gold. And with one core cast member gone (Charisma Carpenter, whose Cordelia was immersed in a deep coma), it seemed as if the show, from within and without, would suddenly fall apart--that is, until Angel's longtime nemesis Spike (James Marsters) showed up, fresh from his sacrificial roasting at the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Let the vampire games begin! With Buffy off the air, fans flocked to Angel's last season to get their fix of Joss Whedon's "Buffyverse" in any form they could, and the addition of Spike was a shrewd one, albeit not enough to keep the show from getting canceled. And for the first half of the season, the creative forces behind the show seemed to be toying ruthlessly with the audience. Spike was around, but not entirely corporeal; Angel himself became sullen and withdrawn; and most horrifically, sweetheart scientist Fred (Amy Acker) and former watcher Wesley (Alexis Denisof) underwent traumas that would test even the most devoted viewer. However, just when you'd be about to throw in the towel, things started changing for the better--Spike became a permanent fixture (both in the flesh and on the show), Angel's secret motives were revealed, and the introduction of demon warrior Illyria, who proved to be the show's answer to Buffy's sardonic demon-made-human Anya, was a welcome breath of fresh air. Creatively, Angel also came up with some of its best episodes, including "Smile Time" (where Angel is turned into a puppet – really!) and "You're Welcome" (the show's 100th episode, which marked the bittersweet return of Carpenter's Cordelia). The ending of the series was deliberately ambiguous, and not everyone made it through alive, but in going out kicking, it was a proper sendoff for a show that always fought the good fight. --Mark Englehart

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Dumb Witness | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £24.93   |  Saving you £-14.94 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Poirot and Hastings are in Windermere watching Charles Arundel's attempt to break the world water speed record. They return to the Arundel's family members. The situation is exasperated when Aunt Emily falls down the stairs. Poirot suspects foul play and his suspicions are confirmed when she is found dead the following day. It becomes clear to Poirot that the only one who knows who murdered Emily is Bob the resident fox terrier. Poirot understands that this dumb witness must find its own way of telling him what he has seen...

• Angel: Complete Season 4 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  As the fourth series of Angel starts, everything is still as we left it: Angel has been sunk to the bottom of the sea in an iron box by his inexplicable and vindictive son Connor and Cordelia has been summoned to higher realms to await orders. Gunn and Fred are left in the Hyperion Hotel, unsure about what has happened to their friends, and Lilah is working hard to seduce Wesley to the dark side. In the first few episodes, some of this is resolved but it's almost immediately replaced by far worse crises: prophesies of doom accumulate more rapidly even than usual in this wonderfully gloomy show and a horned rock-like Beast rains fire on Los Angeles. This last year is Angel's most tightly dramatic season yet--with a story arc of surprising intensity punctuated by the show's usual wit and sexiness. On the DVD: Angel, Series 4 is presented on disc in Dolby 2.0 Surround Sound with a visual aspect ratio of 16:9. It comes with insightful, and often hilarious, commentaries on seven of the 22 episodes as well as featurettes--a series overview, profiles of the characters of Jasmine and the Beast, a farewell to the Hyperion Hotel (the characters' base for three seasons) and a discussion of the apocalypse that Angel has to deal with from episode seven onwards). It has subtitles in English, French, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish and has the option of the soundtrack dubbed into French. --Roz Kaveney

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Sad Cypress | DVD | (19/04/2004) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Another intriguing investigation for the brilliant Belgian detective as the beautiful Elinor Carlisle stands accused of a double murder; that of her wealthy aunt Laura Wellman and also of her rival in love Mary Gerrard. Elinor had the motive and the opportunity to administer the fatal poison to both women. Poirot believes the evidence to be irrefutable but once his little grey cells get to work he begins to piece together another version of events as Elinor finds time running out...

• Alvin and the Chipmunks - Munk Rock Edition | Blu Ray | (28/12/2009) from £6.14   |  Saving you £16.84 (534.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A struggling songwriter named Dave Seville finds success when he comes across a trio of singing chipmunks: mischievous leader Alvin brainy Simon and chubby impressionable Theodore.