"Actor: John Schofield"

• Blithe Spirit | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £6.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Noel Coward's favourite play, Blithe Spirit, was certainly a departure for David Lean, best known at the time for adapting Dickens. While it's the director's only comedy, the result is a delightful gem. Rex Harrison is an acerbic author haunted by the ghost of first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond), who tries to seduce him all over again. This throws his second wife (Constance Cummings) into a panic, second-guessing her lack of passion. It's a celestial sex romp that hasn't lost its bite. Margaret Rutherford, as always, steals the show as the sardonic medium. --Bill Desowitz

• Help | DVD | (11/10/2021) from £14.65   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Television drama starring Stephen Graham and Jodie Comer. Set in Liverpool, Sarah (Comer) is a care home assistant still working her six-week probation period when the Covid-19 pandemic hits. Adept at her new role Sarah strikes up a rapport with Tony (Graham), who has early-onset Alzheimer's. But as restrictions come into place Sarah and the care home she works in struggle to cope with the new demands and is sorely in need of adequate PPE despite the best efforts of manager Steve (Ian Hart). As the situation continues to deteriorate Sarah takes matters into her owns hands and does all she can to protect Tony.

• Absolute Power - Series 1 | DVD | (18/07/2005) from £7.23   |  Saving you £12.76 (176.49%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Stephen Fry and John Bird star as spin doctors Charles Prentiss and Martin McCabe bringing the popular and satirical Radio 4 comedy Absolute Power to BBC 2. Written by media commentator Mark Lawson writers Andy Rattenbury (Teachers) and Guy Andrews (Chancer) Absolute Power casts a witty and acerbic eye on the machinations of PR gurus and does for the PR industry what Drop The Dead Donkey did for the newsroom. Stephen as Prentiss and John as McCabe are a

• The Naked Civil Servant | DVD | (12/09/2005) from £7.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Naked Civil Servant | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £4.98   |  Saving you £11.01 (221.08%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Award Winning film autobiography of the English eccentric Quentin Crisp. The film traces Crisp's life from the early 1930's telling of his blatent exhibitionism as an outrageously effeminate homosexual. John Hurt's unforgettable performance won him a BAFTA for Best Actor while director Jack Gold won the Academy's highest commendation The Desmond Davies Award for outstanding creative contribution to television.

• New Scotland Yard - The Complete Series 1 | DVD | (16/07/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Starring John Woodvine, one of Britain's most distinguished stage and screen actors, this LWT police drama series presents a grippingly authentic portrayal of detective work in London during the rapidly changing 1970s. Executive-produced by Rex Firkin, this first series also featured ex-Chief Superintendent Frank Williams (former head of the Yard's Murder Squad) as advisor and scripts by Gangsters creator Philip Martin and Robert Banks Stewart.The focus is on Detective Chief Superintendent John Kingdom, of the Central Office of the CID. Having worked his way to the top through a number of Greater London divisions, he knows the force and he knows the villains. With a quiet authority he tackles some of the capital's most serious, high-profile, and perplexing cases; assisting the workaholic Kingdom is his equally efficient colleague, Detective Inspector Alan Ward.

• The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin - The Complete Third Series | DVD | (19/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Boasting a virtuoso comic performance from Leonard Rossiter The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976-79) remains one of the greatest of all television sitcoms. Writer David Nobbs combined the surrealist absurdity of Monty Python with an on-going story line that unfolded through each of the three seasons with a clear beginning, middle and end; a ground-breaking development in 70s TV comedy. The first and best season charts middle-aged, middle-management executive Reginald Perrin as he breaks-down under the stress of middle-class life until he informs the world that half the parking meters in London have Dutch Parking Meter Disease. He fakes suicide and returns to court his wife Elizabeth (Pauline Yates) in disguise, a plot development that formed the entire basis of Mrs Doubtfire (1993). Series Two is broader, the rapid-fire dialogue still razor sharp and loaded with caustic wit and ingenious silliness, as a now sane Reggie takes on the madness of the business world by opening a chain of shops selling rubbish. The third season, set in a health farm, is routine, the edge blunted by routine sitcom conventions. At its best The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin is hilarious and moving, its depiction of English middle-class life spot on, its satire prophetic. Reggie's visual fantasies hark back to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and Billy Liar (1963), and look forward to Ally McBeal (1997-2002) and are the icing on the cake of a fine, original and highly imaginative show. On the DVD: Reginald Perrin's discs contain one complete seven episode season. There are no extras. The sound is good mono and the 4:3 picture is generally fine, though some of the exterior shot-on-film scenes have deteriorated and there are occasional signs of minor damage to the original video masters. Even so, for a 1970s sitcom shot on video the picture is excellent and far superior to the original broadcasts. --Gary S Dalkin

• Alan Bleasdale Presents - Self-Catering - Ch4 | DVD | (04/06/2018) from £5.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the play by Jim Morris. Blood on the Dole follows the lives of four teenagers, two boys and two girls, struggling to cope after being thrust into the real world for the first time after leaving school. Living in deprived Merseyside, the four youths' bright-eyed optimism for their futures and new-found freedom is soon crushed by the realities of unemployment, poverty, and the brutal reality of living and trying to find work in a city in decline. They all soon find themselves in the hopeless situation of facing complete dependence on state handouts, the dole . The four teenagers instead find themselves turning to each other to find the strength to survive. An impressively fresh social commentary and portrayal of teenage love set within a disturbingly authentic account of disenfranchised youth. With austerity still very much a part of our political climate, and recent films such as I, Daniel Blake continuing to challenge such government policy, Blood on the Dole is still a hugely relevant watch today. Produced by BAFTA-winner Alan Bleasdale as a part of the Alan Bleasdale Presents series, a Channel 4 anthology showcasing and given a platform to new, up-and-coming talent young writers. After his successes in landmark dramas including Boys from the Black Stuff, The Monocled Mutineer and GBH, in 1994 Channel 4 gave Alan Bleasdale the opportunity to find and mentor new TV writers. Four big-budget, standalone films were made as a result, with top casts and experimental storylines.

• The Secret Adventures Of Tom Thumb | DVD | (29/11/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A nursery crime of epic proportions. A dark twisted yet enchanting version of the classic fairy tale. Set in a world of dark and shadowy tenements shining high-tech labs ande spectic landscapes of garbage and ruins The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb makes a touching hero of the tiny child mysteriously born to a woman and a man in experiments in a lab full of mutant creatures. He narrowly escapes into a world where he finds companionship with people his own size and starts to fig