"Actor: Matt Healy"

• Lenny Henry - In Pieces | DVD | (13/05/2002) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-25.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  After some years making a name for himself as a serious actor and television presenter, Lenny Henry in Pieces sees the comedian return to the world of the TV sketch show. Having always struggled to find a suitable format for his comedy (remember Delbert Wilkins?), Henry has this time settled on a fairly frantic style, with mixed results. The best bits, as has often been the case with his material, come when he draws on the rich vein of West Indian humour, particularly the more mature characters. When he heads more for the middle of the road, however, Henry starts to falter. The movie pastiches are largely uninspired, ironically coming across as little more than cast offs from French and Saunders, and the show is lacking in the energy that so infuses Henry's stand up routines. There certainly are some good characters (Weekend Dad and the homo-erotic trawlermen Pete and Steve especially) but after a while the lack of variety in even these creations becomes frustrating. Such repetition works in the superior ensemble piece of The Fast Show, but this falls flat over the course of the eight episodes. Looks like Lenny Henry might need to go back to the drawing board. On the DVD: Lenny Henry in Pieces has a running time of nearly four hours, so the lack of extras may be understandable but is no less disappointing. The interactive menu is handy for skipping through some of the less engaging moments but is not detailed enough to help pinpoint specific scenes. The audio and picture quality is good enough television quality. Additional material is limited to 14 minutes of cringingly unfunny out-takes, further proof (if it were needed) that watching someone forget their lines over and over again does not necessarily mean great comedy. --Phil Udell

• Shadow Run | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Shadow Run ought to be considerably more interesting than it is--Geoffrey Reeve is an efficient director and both Michael Caine and James Fox turn in icy performances as, respectively, an almost completely ruthless thief and the renegade intelligence man who hires him for that one last big job. Caine in particular is convincing in the half-hearted attacks of compunction that never stop him killing obstacles. Many of the bit-players--Lesley Grantham, for example--do a lot with almost nonexistent parts. The film counterpoints the planning of the heist with the social embarrassments of the fat schoolboy who becomes, by a series of coincidences, too informed about it and, ultimately, Caine's secret sharer. Reeve is rather too in love with the cathedral school background of the subplot and skimps too much on the complicated technical business of getting a computerised security van into a radio blackout zone. Still, the boy is excellent, and Caine's affair with the doomed hooker Rae Baker has some much-needed moments of wit. On the DVD: Disappointingly, the DVD, whose Dolby surround sound does miracles for the scenes of schoolboy choristers, is presented in pan and scan 1.33:1, and has no extra features except for chapter selection and trailers for other films.--Roz Kaveney

• Tom Jones - An Audience With Tom Jones | DVD | (23/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Tom entertains a celebrity audience with songs spanning his three decades in show business. In between songs he takes time to answer questions from a star-studded audience. Featuring performances from smash hit album 'Reload', including duets with Simply Red's Mick Hucknall, Cerys Matthews and Catatonia and Tommy Scott from Space, as well as a selection of his greatest hits, this is your chance to enjoy a sensational evening over and over again.

• In Memory Of My Father | DVD | (01/09/2008) from £5.38   |  Saving you £0.61 (10.20%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Modern day Hollywood and a self-proclaimed film legend bribes his son to document his death under the unquestioning assumption that it will be historically important. The result... In Memory Of My Father a twisted celebration of a Hollywood family narcissistically dealing with an eventfully frustrating day regardless of the distracting centerpiece which they're forced to endure - Daddy's corpse. With the tinted tonality of Six Feet Under and the inappropriate wit of Curb Your Enthusiasm Writer/Director/Actor Christopher Jaymes steers us through Daddy's wake alongside his two brothers his ex his new teenage girlfriend his Dad's shopaholic twenty-something partner and a host of neurotic relatives and friends.