"Actor: June Christopher"

• Dr. Dolittle | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  There's something intrinsically funny about tactlessly truth-telling talking animals. And there are plenty of those--and laughs to go with them--in this 1998 re-imagining of Hugh Lofting's children's story. Eddie Murphy plays the doctor in question, a modern-day San Francisco physician who discovers that he can understand what animals have to say. Director Betty Thomas makes the most of an amazing voice cast for the animals, led by Norm McDonald and including everyone from Garry Shandling to Julie Kavner to Albert Brooks. The story itself is pretty slim--will the conscientious doctor sign his soul away to a greedy HMO?--but Murphy makes the most of it, often providing priceless reactions to animal voices only he can hear. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• We'll Meet Again | DVD | (24/04/2006) from £22.98   |  Saving you £9.00 (42.88%)   |  RRP £29.99

  This critically acclaimed wartime drama is an epic adventure of love friendship and courage during the Second World War. In a quiet Suffolk village life is disrupted when the 525th Bomber Group of the United States Eight Air Force arrives with its Flying Fortress bombers its two thousand officers its energy and confidence. Despite cultural differences between the brash Americans and the reserved but resilient villagers of Market Wetherby they pull together to face the common ene

• Misery | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (233.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When author Paul Sheldon suffers a car accident in a blizzard he thanks his lucky stars that nurse Annie Wilkes was on hand. That is until he discovers that she's his number one fan and has no intention of ever letting him go...

• Doctor Dolittle | DVD | (02/07/2001) from £5.65   |  Saving you £7.34 (129.91%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Betty Thomas directs and Eddie Murphy stars in Doctor Dolittle, the 1998 hit film which, while ostensibly aimed at children, has a high quotient of hip and even mildly gross humour. Murphy stars as John Dolittle, whom we see as a child talking to a neighbourhood dog who explains that the reason mutts sniff each others' butts is to assess their characters when first meeting them. Little John promptly tries this out on being introduced to his school principal. Warned off such social eccentricity, Dolittle stops talking to animals and as an adult becomes a respectable doctor running his own medical practice--until a bump on the head revives his capacity to understand animals, whereupon mayhem, mortification and a menagerie of needy and freeloading creatures are heaped upon his ordered existence. Murphy plays it relatively straight. It's the animals, some of them vividly enhanced by Jim Henson's animating team, who provide the real laughs here, and a thoroughly worldly, wisecracking bunch of characters they prove to be. There's a couple of hard-boiled, squabbling rats, a pigeon who complains of impotence, Rocky the guinea pig (voiced by Chris Rock) with a neat line in hip backchat, while Albert Brooks voices the gruff, melancholy tiger whose life Dolittle must try to save. A sweet but by no means saccharine comedy. On the DVD: The DVD edition features scene selection and a trailer. --David Stubbs

• Absolutely Fabulous - The Last Shout | DVD | (27/11/2000) from £5.65   |  Saving you £10.34 (183.01%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Absolutely Fabulous was first broadcast in 1992 and became an instant hit. Originally a sketch on the French and Saunders Show, Jennifer Saunders saw its potential and created one of the most ground-breaking and debauched comedies on British TV. Centred around the hip London fashion scene the series follows Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley), two women who refuse to grow up and are constantly on a mission to lose weight, gorging themselves with cocaine and/or champagne, endlessly throwing parties (or throwing up at parties), and sporting outrageous outfits which were the height of fashion at the time--honestly sweetie! The superb comic performances offered star status to Julia Sawalha as Edina's straight-laced daughter and Jane Horrocks as the sublimely dippy Bubble, and re-invented the careers of Joanna Lumley and June Whitfield. Saunders meanwhile secured her status as one of the top female comedians Britain has ever produced. Although its consciously chic clothing looks a little dated now, its mad characterisations endure and the jokes remain as hilariously slick and apt as ever. Ab Fab remains a landmark in TV since it was the first time that female comedians and writers had had the freedom and exposure to satirise problems close to their own heart, from their own perspective. With Feminist writers claiming that the ideals of feminism were dead in the 1990s and that female concerns were moving in the wrong direction--towards the "Laddette Culture"--and reports claiming that careers were taking a central role, forcing motherhood onto the back-burner, the series sought to embody and satirise these new supposedly "female" characteristics. As the show continued to grow in popularity both in Britain and the States, plans were made to transfer the formula to America. However, as with many other great British series, the content was considered too risky for American audiences due to the amount of sex and drug references. Thus domestic audiences breathed a sigh of release that their beloved Ab Fab would forever stay British to the core. --Nikki Disney

• Jude | DVD | (14/03/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This curiously dry adaptation of Thomas Hardy's last novel, Jude is a good example of Michael Winterbottom's inability to make a particularly good film until Welcome to Sarajevo. Christopher Eccleston plays Jude Fawley, a self-educated stonemason who holds the dream of attending university but identifies with the working class. Kate Winslet is enlisted to play his cousin Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings and a position as a teacher's assistant. When the two enter into an illicit union, they are condemned to the margins of society, ultimately resulting in a horrifying tragedy. Winterbottom takes an oddly lean approach to Hardy's deterministic story, which leaves a viewer feeling short on emotion just when one needs it for the from-bad-to-worse third act. Welcome to Sarajevo proved that Winterbottom needs a whole other level of personal involvement to make a film that inspires him. Jude isn't one of those lucky films. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Innocent Sinners | DVD | (09/10/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A fine example of a 1950's post war drama produced by the Rank Film Studios and starring Flora Robson, David Kossoff, June Archer and directed by Philip Leacock. Lovejoy Mason (June Archer) is an independently minded young rascal living in bombed out London. Bored with her mundane existence Lovejoy finds an outlet for beauty and self-expression by building a small garden in the ruins of a bombed out church yard. Though she is ignored by her mother and ridiculed by other local children, Lovejoy is aided in her project by Tip Malone (Christopher Hey). Tragedy strikes when her garden is vandalised by a local boys' gang, however impressed by her determination, they offer to help her rebuild it. Lovejoy's troubles are not over, and she faces further challenges before she gets the garden of her dreams. Britain, like Lovejoy's garden, was rising from the rubble of war and thriving.

• Absolutely Fabulous - Series 1 To 4 Box Set | DVD | (25/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £54.99

  Absolutely Fabulous was first broadcast in 1992 and became an instant hit. Originally a sketch on the French and Saunders Show, Jennifer Saunders saw its potential and created one of the most ground-breaking and debauched comedies on British TV. Centred around the hip London fashion scene the series follows Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley), two women who refuse to grow up and are constantly on a mission to lose weight, gorging themselves with cocaine and/or champagne, endlessly throwing parties (or throwing up at parties), and sporting outrageous outfits, which were the height of fashion at the time--honestly sweetie! The superb comic performances reinvented the careers of Joanna Lumley and June Whitfield. Saunders meanwhile secured her status as one of Britain's top female comedians. Although its consciously chic clothing looks a little dated now, its mad characterisations endure and the jokes remain as hilariously slick and apt as ever. On the DVD: Absolutely Fabulous DVD box set comes beautifully packaged in mock velvet, with each series individually packaged inside. The original sketch from the French and Saunders Show and the pilot episode, "Mirrorball", offers all you need to understand the show's origins The commentary with Jennifer Saunders and John Ploughman on Series 4 is refreshing, owning up to the mistakes they made and the jokes that didn't work. The outtakes are funnier than the usual Hollywood blips. The 4:3 transfer is standard for a television comedy. --Nikki Disney

• Fury At Smuggler's Bay | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A small coastal village is the setting for smuggling and ship wrecking. Only the Squire's son is prepared to speak out against the man responsible...