"Actor: Nicholas"

• The Russia House | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £6.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Intelligent casting, strong performances and the persuasive chemistry between Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer prove the virtues in director Fred Schepisi's well-intended but problematic screen realization of this John Le Carré espionage thriller. At its best, The Russia House depicts the bittersweet nuances of the pivotal affair between a weary, alcoholic London publisher (Connery) and the mysterious Russian beauty (Pfeiffer) who sends him a fateful manuscript exposing the weaknesses beneath Soviet defence technology. Connery's Barley is a gritty, all-too-human figure who's palpably revived by his awakening feelings for Pfeiffer's wan, vulnerable Katya, whose own reciprocal emotions are equally convincing. Together, they weave a poignant romantic duet. The problems, meanwhile, emanate from the story line that brings these opposites together. Le Carré's novels are absorbing but typically internal odysseys that seldom offer the level of straightforward action or simple arcs of plot that the big screen thrives on. For The Russia House, written as glasnost eclipsed the cold war's overt rivalries, Le Carré means to measure how old adversaries must calibrate their battle to a more subtle, subdued match of wits. Barley himself becomes enmeshed in the mystery of the manuscript because British intelligence chooses to use him as cat's paw rather than become directly involved. Such subtlety may be a more realistic take on the spy games of the recent past but it makes for an often tedious, talky alternative to taut heroics that Connery codified in his most celebrated early espionage role. If the suspense thus suffers, we're still left with an affecting love story, as well as some convincing sniping between British and US intelligence operatives, beautifully cast with James Fox, Roy Scheider and John Mahoney. Veteran playwright Tom Stoppard brings considerable style to the dialogue, without solving the problem of giving us more than those verbal exchanges to sustain dramatic interest. --Sam Sutherland

• Are You Being Served? - Season 4 | DVD | (27/03/2006) from £6.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (128.76%)   |  RRP £15.99

  ""I'm Free!"" There's yet more hilarity at Grace Brothers the High Street department store with a difference. Join in the fun as limp-wristed Mr. Wilberforce Clayborne Humphries and that blue-rinsed battle-axe Mrs 'Betty' Slocombe lead the outrageous department store staff through a fourth series of outrageously funny episodes! Episodes comprise: 1. No Sale 2. Top Hat and Tails 3. Forward Mr. Grainger 4. Fire Practice 5. Fifty Years On 6. Oh What a Tangled We

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Complete Season 1-7 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £33.95

  From its charming and angst-ridden first season to the darker, apocalyptic final one, Buffy the Vampire Slayer succeeds on many levels, and in a fresher and more authentic way than the shows that came before or after it. How lucky, then, that with the release of its boxed set of seasons 1-7, you can have the estimable pleasure of watching a near-decade of Buffy in any order you choose. (And we have some ideas about how that should be done.) First: rest assured that there's no shame in coming to Buffy late, even if you initially turned your nose up at the winsome Sarah Michelle Gellar kicking the hell out of vampires (in Buffy-lingo, vamps), demons, and other evil-doers. Perhaps you did so because, well, it looked sort of science-fiction-like with all that monster latex. Start with season 3 and see that Buffy offers something for everyone, and the sooner you succumb to it, the quicker you'll appreciate how textured and riveting a drama it is. Why season 3? Because it offers you a winning cast of characters who have fallen from innocence: their hearts have been broken, their egos trampled in typically vicious high-school style, and as a result, they've begun to realise how fallible they are. As much as they try, there are always more monsters, or a bigger evil. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the core crew remains something of a unit--there's the smart girl, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) who dreams of saving the day by downloading the plans to City Hall's sewer tunnels and mapping a route to safety. There are the ne'r do wells--the vampire Spike (James Marsters), who both clashes with and aspires to love Buffy; the tortured and torturing Angel (David Boreanz); the pretty, popular girl with an empty heart (Charisma Carpenter); and the teenage everyman, Xander (Nicholas Brendon). Then there's Buffy herself, who in the course of seven seasons morphs from a sarcastic teenager in a minidress to a heroine whose tragic flaw is an abiding desire to be a "normal" girl. On a lesser note, with the boxed set you can watch the fashion transformation of Buffy from mall rat to Prada-wearing, kickboxing diva with enviable highlights. (There was the unfortunate bob of season 2, but it's a forgivable lapse.) At least the storyline merits the transformations: every time Buffy has to end a relationship she cuts her hair, shedding both the pain and her vulnerability. In addition to the well-wrought teenage emotional landscape, Buffy deftly takes on more universal themes--power, politics, death, morality--as the series matures in seasons 4-6. And apart from a few missteps that haven't aged particularly well ("I Robot" in season 1 comes to mind), most episodes feel as harrowing and as richly drawn as they did at first viewing. That's about as much as you can ask for any form of entertainment: that it offer an escape from the viewer's workaday world and entry into one in which the heroine (ideally one with leather pants) overcomes demons far more troubling than one's own. --Megan Halverson

• Strike: Career Of Evil | DVD | (16/04/2018) from £20.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• All Creatures Great & Small: Series 1-4 | DVD | (11/12/2023) from £41.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Fresh out of Glasgow Veterinary College, James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) follows his dream to become a vet in the magnificent Yorkshire Dales. He soon discovers that treating the animals is as much about treating their owners, and the Dales farmers are a tough crowd to please. Settling in at Skeldale House, James gets to know his newly formed dysfunctional family; his chaotic and erratic boss Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West), his wayward brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) and the shrewd housekeeper Mrs. Hall (Anna Madeley) who is endlessly steering the ship. As local farmer's daughter Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton) wins James's heart he soon finds himself falling in love with more than just the Dales. As Helen and James navigate their feelings for one another, a trip back to Glasgow in Series Two presents a dilemma which leaves James having to decide whether to follow his head or his heart. Series Three brings with it big changes as James enters a new stage of his life, both with Helen and with the practice. With the war in full swing in Series Four, James and Helen wonder when the right time might be to start a family and Tristan's absence is felt by everyone, especially Siegfried. This Series One to Four boxset also features the Christmas Specials The Night Before Christmas, The Perfect Christmas and Merry Bloody Christmas.

• Sex, Chips And Rock 'n' Roll | DVD | (08/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Sex, Chips and Rock 'n' Roll spins a complex web of secret loves and twisted ambitions against the backdrop of the early British music scene. It's a rock n' roll soap opera, but it's smartly written and engagingly acted, full of subtle commentary on the cultural changes cutting across British society. Manchester in 1965 seems like a dead end to two sisters, flirty Arden (Emma Cooke) and bookish Ellie Brookes (Gillian Kearney). They ache to get out from under the thumb of their domineering grandmother (Sue Johnston), and when their cousin Norman (David Threlfall) proposes to Ellie, she accepts. But just then the sisters meet a struggling band called the Ice Cubes, who grudgingly play back-up for a smarmy singer named Larry B Cool (Phil Daniels) while trying to land a record deal. Arden throws herself at the group's leader, Dallas (Joseph McFadden), but Dallas finds himself drawn more to Ellie, who's also an aspiring songwriter. From there the multi-dimensional characters take unexpected turns, and you'll quickly find yourself drawn into their lives. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• Risky Business | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £12.77   |  Saving you £1.22 (9.55%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Little did Tom Cruise know that he would become a box-office superstar after he cranked up some Bob Seeger and played air guitar in his underwear. But there's more to this 1983 hit than the arrival of a hot young star. Making a stylish debut, writer-director Paul Brickman crafted a subtle satire of crass materialism wrapped in an irresistible plot about a crafty high schooler named Joel (Cruise) who goes into risky business with the beguiling prostitute Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) while his parents are out of town. Joel turns his affluent Chicago-suburb home into a lucrative bordello and forms a steamy personal and professional partnership with Lana, but only as long as the two can avoid the vengeful pimp Guido (Joe Pantoliano) and keep their customers happy. A signature film of the 1980s, Risky Business still holds up thanks to Cruise's effortless charm and the movie's timeless appeal as an adolescent male fantasy. --Jeff Shannon

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 6 | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Season six of Buffy's exciting vampire vanquishing adventures. Episodes Comprise: 1. Bargaining - Part 1 2. Bargaining - Part 2 3. After Life 4. Flooded 5. Life Serial 6. All The Way 7. Once More With Feeling 8. Tabula Rasa 9. Smashed 10. Wrecked 11. Gone 12. Doublemeat Palace 13. Dead Things 14. Older And Far Away 15. As You Were 16. Hell's Bells 17. Normal Again 18. Entropy 19. Seeing Red 20. Villains 21. Two To Go 22. Grave

• Trainspotting | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £6.18   |  Saving you £15.07 (306.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The film that effectively launched the star careers of Robert Carlyle, Ewan McGregor and Jonny Lee Miller is a hard, barbed picaresque, culled from the bestseller by Irvine Welsh and thrown down against the heroin hinterlands of Edinburgh. Directed with abandon by Danny Boyle, Trainspotting conspires to be at once a hip youth flick and a grim cautionary fable. Released on an unsuspecting public in 1996, the picture struck a chord with audiences worldwide and became adopted as an instant symbol of a booming British rave culture (an irony, given the characters' main drug of choice is heroin not ecstasy).McGregor, Lee Miller and Ewen Bremner play a slouching trio of Scottish junkies; Carlyle their narcotic-eschewing but hard-drinking and generally psychotic mate Begbie. In Boyle's hands, their lives unfold in a rush of euphoric highs, blow-out overdoses and agonising withdrawals (all cued to a vogueish pop soundtrack). Throughout it all, John Hodge's screenplay strikes a delicate balance between acknowledging the inherent pleasures of drug use and spotlighting its eventual consequences. In Trainspotting's world view, it all comes down to a question of choices--between the dangerous Day-Glo highs of the addict and the grey, grinding consumerism of the everyday Joe. "Choose life", quips the film's narrator (McGregor) in a monologue that was to become a mantra. "Choose a job, choose a starter home... But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?" Ultimately, Trainspotting's wised-up, dead-beat inhabitants reject mainstream society in favour of a headlong rush to destruction. It makes for an exhilarating, energised and frequently terrifying trip that blazes with more energy and passion than a thousand more ostensibly life-embracing movies. --Xan Brooks

• Lord of the Flies (The Criterion Collection) | Blu Ray | (28/08/2017) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In this classic 1963 adaptation of William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, a planeload of schoolboys are stranded on a tropical island. They've got food and water; all that's left is to govern themselves peacefully until they are rescued. "After all", says choir leader Jack, "We're English. We're the best in the world at everything!" Unfortunately, living peacefully is not as easy as it seems. Though Ralph is named chief, Jack and the choristers quickly form a clique of their own, using the ever-effective political promise of fun rather than responsibility to draw converts. Director Peter Brook draws some excellent performances out of his young cast: the moment when Ralph realises that even if he blows the conch for a meeting people might not come is an excruciating one. Well acted and faithfully executed, Lord of the Flies is as compelling today as when first released. --Ali Davis

• The X Files: Season 2 | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £14.93   |  Saving you £20.06 (134.36%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Season Two, the 1994-95 run, of The X Files was the one where creator Chris Carter, having had a surprise hit when he expected a one-season wonder, started trying to make sense of all the storylines he had thrown into the pile in the first year. Moreover, he had to cope with Gillian Anderson's maternity leave by having Scully get abducted by aliens (back then, a pretty fresh device) for a few episodes and come back strangely altered. The season also inaugurated the tradition of opening ("Little Green Men") and closing ("Anasazi") with the show's worst episodes, both pot-boiling attempts to keep the alien infiltration/government conspiracy balls up in the air while seeming to offer narrative forward-thrusts or revelations. But it's also a show noticeably surer of itself than Season One, with its stars reading from the same page in terms of their characters' relationship and attitudes to the wondrous. Scully's no-longer-workable scepticism finally starts to erode in the face of Mulder's increasingly cracked belief. There are fewer marking-time leftover-monster-of-the-week shows--although we do get a human fluke ("The Host"), vampires ("3"), an invisible rapist ("Excelsius Dei") voodoo ("Fresh Bones")--and the flying-saucer stories at last seem to be going somewhere. The powerful two-episode run ("Duane Barry", "Ascension") features Steve Railsback as Mulder's possible future, an FBI agent burned out after a UFO abduction who has become a hostage-taking terrorist, which climaxes with Scully's disappearance into the light. The standout episode is also a stand-alone--"Humbug"--the first and still most successful of the show's self-parodies (written by Darin Morgan, who had played the Flukeman in "The Host"), in which the agents investigate a murder in a circus freakshow, allowing the actors to make fun of the mannerisms they have earnestly built up in a run of solemn, even somnolent, explorations of the murk. Other worthy efforts: "Aubrey", about genetic memory; "Irresistible", a rare (and creepy) straight psycho-chiller with little paranormal content; and "The Calusari", a good ghost/mystery. Rising deputy characters include Nicholas Lea as the perfidious Krycek and Brian Thompson as the shapeshifting alien bounty hunters. Notable guest stars: Charles Martin Smith, C.C.H. Pounder, Leland Orser, Terry O'Quinn, Bruce Weitz, Daniel Benzali, John Savage, Vincent Schiavelli, Tony Shalhoub. --Kim Newman

• Crawlspace | DVD | (06/05/2013) from £6.22   |  Saving you £9.77 (157.07%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Deep beneath the sands of the remote Australian outback lies 'Pine Gap', a top secret research facility established by the US and Australian Governments. When all contact is lost with the military compound, a heavily armoured special forces unit is sent in to find out what has happened. As their search takes them deeper into the bowels of the labyrinthine facility, they soon discover that something terrible has escaped. Under attack and with their numbers dwindling, the remaining soldiers must fight their way out through a steel maze that crawls with unimaginable terrors. In the darkness, when the bullets run dry, all that's left is to pray for a quick death...

• Footballers Wives - Series 5 | DVD | (09/10/2006) from £14.74   |  Saving you £10.25 (69.54%)   |  RRP £24.99

  They're beautiful they're filthy rich and they can have anything money can buy...so why are they hardly ever happy? Series 5 of Footballer's Wives comes to DVD where you can expect more sex and scandal at the gates of Earls Park F.C.

• Goodnight Sweetheart - Series 1 | DVD | (04/02/2008) from £6.66   |  Saving you £-3.67 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Available for the first time on DVD the BBC's massively successful primetime series: Goodnight Sweetheart. Starring Nicholas Lyndhurst Goodnight Sweetheart became an instant hit with TV viewers of all ages as it charts the life of Gary Sparrow a dealer in memorabilia and antiques of WW2 who has miraculously discovered a portal in time which allows him to travel between the present and wartime Britain. This handy little trick obviously adds to the success of his business but the co

• The Canterbury Tales (I Racconti di Canterbury) | DVD | (18/06/2001) from £8.97   |  Saving you £11.02 (122.85%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini's film of The Canterbury Tales was one of a trilogy from the early 1970s that, like its companions The Decameron and the Arabian Nights, was an international box-office hit playing for long runs in mainstream cinemas. All of them adapt a masterpiece of literature where man becomes the moral catalyst for his own destiny. Chaucer's ribald sense of humour was a natural outlet for Pasolini's own desire to throw caution to the wind on screen, causing controversy at the time by displaying all facets of the male and female body unadorned. (Although it all looks pretty tame now, the Italian authorities were a threatening presence to Pasolini at the time.) Produced by Alberto Grimaldi with a large budget, the location scenes were filmed in many historic sites in England, notably Wells Cathedral, its crypt, and the surrounding flatlands leading toward Glastonbury, captured in early spring by Tonino Delli Colli's cinematography. The cast with Italian and English actors dubbed into Italian with English subtitles is a mixed blessing. Hugh Griffith as Sir January is one Anglo-Saxon recognisable from his role as the lecherous squire in Tom Jones, and overacts like the rest of the cast. Pasolini himself appears briefly as Chaucer in a non-speaking role that one regrets he didn't enlarge for himself in this sprawling tableaux of pilgrim's tales (Ken Russell's excesses from the same period come to mind). The musical score, an adaptation by Ennio Morricone of some traditional indigenous melodies, prefigures the early music revival by a few years and provides a stimulating soundtrack. --Adrian Edwards

• After You've Gone - Series 3 | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £19.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (1.22%)   |  RRP £19.99

  After You've Gone: Season 3

• Appointment With Death | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on the novel by Agatha Christie a posh 1937 tour of the holy land turns murderous when a malicious malevolent matriarch (Piper Laurie) is mysteriously poisoned. Each of her fellow tourists had the means and the motive to kill her and any of them would have enjoyed plunging the lethal hypodermic syringe into Mrs. Boynton's fleshy arm. It's up to nimble-witted Belgian detective Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to discover whodunit.

• The Riff Raff Element: The Complete Series | DVD | (21/08/2017) from £20.68   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Down-on-their luck, upper-class family rent out a wing of their stately home to a lower-class family.

• The Agatha Christie Hour Collection | DVD | (10/05/2010) from £16.18   |  Saving you £13.81 (85.35%)   |  RRP £29.99

  The Agatha Christie Hour is a collection of ten hour-long dramas based on short stories by the most popular novelist in history. Some were romances some had supernatural themes and a couple were adventures. The common link was that all came from the talented pen of Agatha Christie all were entertaining and each drama was carefully crafted and well cast with many of Britain's best known actors of the time represented. Episodes Comprise: The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife: When Mrs Packington whose husband is paying more attention to his young secretary answers an ad in the papers reading ARE YOU HAPPY? IF NOT CONSULT MR PARKER PYNE she soon finds herself being dazzled and swept off her feet by the handsome Claude Luttrell. In A Glass Darkly: Matthew Armitage is startled by a vision in his mirror: he sees a man with a scarred neck strangling a beautiful blonde. He later meets the woman in his vision Sylvia and notes her fiance's scarred neck. Mathew tells Sylvia of his premonition and the engagement is broken off. But is that all there is to it? The Case of the Discontented Soldier: The recently retired Major Wilbraham is bored and unhappy so he answers Parker Pyne's newspaper ad. Before long the Major finds himself rescuing Freda Clegg from two burly attackers; with Freda in tow he embarks on a daring adventure to find treasure in the wilds of Africa! Another charming love story of an autumn romance. Magnolia Blossom: Theodora Darrell is running away with her lover - and business associate of her husband - Vincent Easton when she learns her husband Richard is facing financial ruin. Old loyalties resurface and she returns home to see if she can fix the situation. The Mystery of the Blue Jar: Playing golf early one morning Jack Harrington hears a cry Murder! Help! from a nearby cottage. He runs up to find a beautiful French girl Felise placidly weeding the garden oblivious to any disturbance. When the Jack hears the same cries for many days he begins to think he might be mad. But are more sinister forces at work? The Red Signal: Dermot West is invited to dinner at the home of Jack and Claire Trent. The first is his best friend the second the woman he loves. During the evening the conversation turns to the supernatural; Dermot admits he frequently gets what he calls 'the red signal' to warn him of impending danger. He neglects to mention that he is getting the signal strongly that night! Jane in Search of a Job: Jane Cleveland lands a sought-after job as double for the Grand Duchess of Ostrova during the latter's state visit to England. An attempt is feared on the Duchess' life and when Jane is framed for a theft events become ever more complicated. Can she clear her name and who is trying to kill the Duchess? The Manhood of Edward Robinson: Prim and proper yet a romantic dreamer Edward Robinson leads a rather dull life with his domineering girlfriend and uninspiring job. His quiet dull life ends when he wins some money in a newspaper contest and he embarks on an adventure that even he never dreamed of. The Girl in The Train: George Rowland a bored playboy disowned for the seventh time by his wealthy uncle is on the train to London. When a beautiful girl bursts into his compartment frantically begging to be hidden his life changes dramatically. The Fourth Man: A canon a lawyer and a psychiatrist find themselves together on a train bound for Newcastle. There is a fourth man in the compartment who apparently pays no attention to his companions' animated conversation.

• Nico - Above The Law | DVD | (26/04/1999) from £5.98   |  Saving you £8.01 (133.95%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Steven Seagal plays a Chicago cop who takes on CIA types in this action thriller from Andrew Davis (The Fugitive). Davis brings muscle to the project, including some strong set pieces that make Seagal (who also co-wrote and co-produced the film) look good. Co-stars Pam Grier and Sharon Stone also assist in this endeavour, yet nothing can really mitigate such ridiculous moments as Seagal's getting profound with a villain in his raspy monotone: "You think you're above the law. But you're not.". --Tom Keogh, Amazon.co.uk