"Actor: Di Botcher"

• Twin Town | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £9.78   |  Saving you £6.21 (63.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Producer Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) is behind this decadent comedy about a pair of lowlife but oddly intelligent Welsh brothers who generally make a pain of themselves in their small community, but who get serious about exacting revenge for a family tragedy. Director Kevin Allen succeeds at turning the entire film into a jacked-up freak show, with petty terrorism, cops on the take, a young virgin getting it on with a middle-aged creep and a male choir inexplicably singing Mungo Jerry's ancient hit "In the Summertime". Twin Town is loony, nasty stuff all around, but the only good laughs in the movie are top loaded into the first few minutes. After that, it's sheer tedium. --Tom Keogh

• Twin Town | DVD | (21/08/2023) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Twin Town | Blu Ray | (21/08/2023) from £14.39   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Bryn Cartwright, a wealthy roofing contractor, Rugby Club Chairman and local kingpin rules the roost until Fatty Lewis, a local handyman, falls off a ladder on a Cartwright job. Bryn refuses to pay compensation. The twins, Fatty's wayward sons, devise a wickedly comic way of getting even and Bryn ends up paying dearly. Representing the thin blue line of the law are Terry and Greyo, two local policemen who employ their own dubious peacekeeping methods as events spiral out of control. Product Features Interview with Morgan Hopkins Interview with Mark Thomas (music composer) Commentary with Morgan Hopkins & Gary Slaymaker

• Tipping the Velvet | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £6.30   |  Saving you £-0.31 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Screenwriter Andrew Davies describes Tipping the Velvet, his adaptation of Sarah Waters's acclaimed novel of lesbian love, betrayal and redemption in Victorian England, as "Pride and Prejudice with dirty bits". This three-part BBC production chronicles with relish the story of Nan Astley (Rachael Stirling, the ravishing image of her mother, Diana Rigg), barely 18, and certain that life holds more for her than her oyster girl's existence. "You'll meet someone who'll have your head spinning and your legs turning to jelly", her sister promises. That someone surprisingly turns out to be "gay and bold" Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes), a music-hall entertainer with whom Nan falls instantly, and swooningly, in love. Nan follows her to London, where, as a double act, they become the toast of London, until Kitty's "marriage of convenience" breaks up the act and Nan's heart. The outcast Nan, decked out in Victor/Victoria duds, becomes a streetwalker, and then "tart" to the aptly named Diana Leatherby (Anna Chancellor). This affair, too, comes to "a bad end" as a destitute Nan is deposited back on the streets, where she insinuates herself into the lives of Florence (Jodhi May), a social worker, and her socialist brother. Is Nan "too spoiled and stained for love"? Will she risk her blossoming relationship with Florence when Kitty inevitably returns to rekindle their affair? Nan's couplings, while tastefully done, do carry what Waters calls "a queer erotic charge". They are graphic by BBC standards. But the sterling writing and performances will captivate even the most sensitive viewers, making this groundbreaking mini-series, to quote one character, "a delightful evening... a rare treat". --Donald Liebenson

• Twin Town | DVD | (15/05/2006) from £22.79   |  Saving you £-6.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Bryn Cartwright a wealthy roofing contractor Rugby Club Chairman and local kingpin rules the roost until Fatty Lewis a local handyman falls off a ladder on a Cartwright job. Bryn refuses to pay compensation. The twins Fatty's wayward sons devise a wickedly comic way of getting even and Bryn ends up paying dearly...

• The Gospel of Us | DVD | (09/07/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Easter. Port Talbot is in a battle for its life. Authoritarian forces have taken over and the town is in thrall to ICU, a sinister and merciless corporation depleting the town of its resources with scant regard for the residents. The atmosphere is explosive. Resistance is inevitable.When a company man and suicide bomber clash on the beach, catastrophe is only averted by the intervention of a softly spoken man who had disappeared 40 days earlier. Revealed later as the Teacher (Michael Sheen), he attracts followers and becomes a focus for the Resistance. His influence quickly draws the attention of ICU, who perceive him as a danger who must be removed at all costs...

• Orrible | DVD | (20/01/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The idea behind 'Orrible is easy to appreciate, even if the programme itself often wasn't. Take Johnny Vaughan--a supremely talented and likable broadcaster, one of very few ubiquitous television presences whose appearance does not drive the intelligent viewer to grim fantasies of revenge involving a baseball bat and a dark ally--and cast him as the lead in a sitcom. It was, at best, a partial success. The problem with 'Orrible is that Vaughan's forte is improvisation and association, not adhering to a script, not even one he cowrote. His character, a dimwitted, shell-suited West London minicab driver with Walter Mitty-ish fantasies of being an underworld player, has possibilities. But the potential is never fully realised, partly due to surprisingly leaden lines, but mostly due to Vaughan's limitations as an actor: he never quite manages to project anything other than a less-funny version of the screen persona audiences know and like. On the DVD: 'Orrible on disc has an episode selector, and a scene selector for each episode. Subtitles are available in English. There is also the option of listening to a running commentary by writers Ed Allen and Johnny Vaughan which, as it is isn't scripted, occasionally offers glimpses of the unrestrained, free-flowing Johnny Vaughan familiar from his other television work--as such, it's far funnier than anything in the actual programme. --Andrew Mueller