"Actor: Janet Ellis"

• Simon Schama - A History of Britain : The Complete Series | DVD | (18/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Stretching from the Stone Age to the year 2000, Simon Schama's Complete History of Britain does not pretend to be a definitive chronicle of the turbulent events which buffeted and shaped the British Isles. What Schama does do, however, is tell the story in vivid and gripping narrative terms, free of the fustiness of traditional academe, personalising key historical events by examining the major characters at the centre of them. Not all historians would approve of the history depicted here as shaped principally by the actions of great men and women rather than by more abstract developments, but Schama's way of telling it is a good deal more enthralling as a result. Schama successfully gives lie to the idea that the history of Britain has been moderate and temperate, passing down the generations as stately as a galleon, taking on board sensible ideas but steering clear of sillier, revolutionary ones. Nonsense. Schama retells British history the way it was--as bloody, convulsive, precarious, hot-blooded and several times within an inch of haring off onto an entirely different course. Schama seems almost to delight in the goriness of history. Themes returned to repeatedly include the wars between the Scots and the Irish and the Catholic/Protestant conflicts--only the Irish question remains unresolved by the new millennium. As Britain becomes a constitutional monarchy, Schama talks less of Kings and Queens but of poets and idea-makers like Orwell. Still, with his pungent, direct manner and against an evocative visual and aural backdrop, Schama makes history seem as though it happened yesterday, the bloodstains not yet dry. On the DVD: The Complete History of Britain extras are generously packaged on a separate disc and include the original score and a Simon Schama biography. There's an interesting "promotional message" to camera in which Schama explains the role of a cab driver, Wally, in inspiring the series, along with an interview with Mark Lawson in which Schama stresses the deliberate subjectivity of these programmes and an inaugural BBC History lecture in which he defends TV's ability to transpose history to camera. --David Stubbs

• 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene | DVD | (11/12/2017) from £5.90   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In 78 setups and 52 cuts, the deliriously choreographed two-minute shower sequence in Psycho ripped apart cinema s definition of horror. With a shocking combination of exploitation and high art, Alfred Hitchcock upended his own acclaimed narrative structure by violently killing off a heroine a third of the way through his film, without explanation, justification, or higher purpose. Psycho played out like a horrific prank, forcing audiences to recognize that even the most banal domestic spaces were now fair game for unspeakable mayhem. With black-and-white film-geek reverence, director Alexandre O. Philippe breaks down this most notorious and essential scene shot for shot, enlisting the help of film buffs and filmmakers alike - including Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis, Karyn Kusama, Eli Roth and Peter Bogdanovich. 78/52 examines Janet Leigh s terrified facial expressions and the blink-and-you-miss-it camera work, not just within the context of the film but also with an eye toward America s changing social mores - revealing how one bloody, chaotic on-screen death killed off chaste cinema and eerily predicted a decade of unprecedented violence and upheaval.

• The Day The Earth Caught Fire | DVD | (20/08/2001) from £10.98   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When the Americans test a nuclear weapon at the South Pole at the exact moment that the Soviets are testing their own weapon at the North the earth's axis is jolted out of alignment causing catastrophic changes in global weather patterns. Additionally the earth has been dislodged from its orbit and is now hurtling towards the sun. It's a race against time as the world prepares for additional nuclear detonations which could restore life as we know it.

• A Day Full Of Fun | DVD | (29/01/2007) from £7.40   |  Saving you £-1.41 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Join Dingle Fingle the clown at his diner where fabulous treats are on the menu! Enjoy well loved songs explore a big red fire engine and follow SuperTed on his space adventures!

• A Trip To The Zoo | DVD | (12/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Join Janet Ellis and her friends on their musical journey at Whipsnade Wild Animal Park one of Europe's biggest zoos and conservation Parks. At the zoo Janet and the children get to see and feed all the most exciting animals including elephants giraffes bears zebras and camels. A Trip To The Zoo is packed with all those elements that children adore - animals other children and best-loved songs. What's more viewers of the video can learn all about the animals through specially w