"Actor: Maurice Quick"

• Made In Britain | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Written by David Leland and directed by Alan Clarke, Made in Britain is a slice of horrible but not inaccurate life from 1982. It holds a terrific early performance from Tim Roth as a skinhead with a swastika caste-mark tattoo, who constantly bares shark-like teeth as he spits embittered, articulate defiance at caring social workers and truncheon-wielding policemen alike. Sixteen-year-old Trevor (Roth) is remanded to an assessment centre before sentencing, but remains determined to disobey the rules imposed on him by any authority figures and spends the whole 73-minute play challenging the system to smack him back down, by vandalising the Job Centre, using his case-file as a toilet, stealing cars, victimising members of the "immigrant community" and shouting bile at people. The cycle that will lead him to an adult life in prison is explained to him with blackboard diagrams, but he believes he's better off keeping his hatred burning than toeing the line to end up as a no-hoper in a society that prizes obedience over conscience. It was originally televised as one of four Leland-filmed dramas about different aspects of the British education system, which made it seem less monomaniacal in its focus on an extreme case. There's no denying that it's an honest portrait of a monster calculated to terrify even the most concerned liberals which still manages to celebrate his self-destructive defiance. A film for television rather than a TV play, it has very strong language but the violence is all in Roth's face.On the DVD: No extra features here, but it does come with optional English sub-titles, and the theme song by the Exploited over the menu. --Kim Newman

• Meantime / Made In Britain | DVD | (17/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Meantime: 'Meantime' centres on East End family the Pollacks - Mavis Frank and their sons Mark and Colin - and their experience of unemployment poverty and life in early 1980s Britain. When Colin comes under the influence of skinhead Coxy and when Mavis's better off sister Barbara offers Colin work family tensions erupt into conflict. Mike Leigh's first independent film for five years has a superb cast of rising stars including Gary Oldman Alfred Molina Tim Roth and Phil Daniels. First shown on television it is a memorable and closely observed account of life in Thatcher's Britain. Made In Britain: Trevor is a teenage skinhead. Caught smashing the windows of a Pakistani owned shop he is sent to an assessment centre by social worker Harry where it is discovered he is highly articulate and intelligent. But he escapes steals cars and goes berserk; can Harry still save him?

• Thomas And Sarah - Episodes 1 To 7 | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The continuation of the Upstairs Downstairs saga which follows the lives of the two servants Thomas and Sarah. Episodes included: The Vanishing Lady Made In Heaven Alma Mater Birds Of A Feather The Silver Ghost The Biters Bit and A Day At The Metropole.