In this classic TV sitcom Gordon Brittas (Chris Barrie) is the manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. He means well wants to do well and desperately wants to be a good manager. Unfortunately his best talent is to continually create recipes for total disaster. Deep down Brittas cares for his staff but all he ever seems to do is to make their lives more difficult. Trying to rise above this and to keep the Centre running smoothly is his assistant Laura (Julia St. John) and of course Colin complete with boil! Behind every good man so the saying goes is a good woman and behind every maniac is a good woman losing her sanity! Helen Brittas (Pippa Haywood) is no different as she struggles to cope with her husband's misplaced enthusiasm. Special Features: Brittas Fitness Quiz Royal Variety Performance 1996 Brittas Management Quiz Star Profile Good Morning Interview Christmas Special 1994 Christmas Special 24th December 1996 Brittas Empire Series 4 Out-takes Where's Ben Game Wogan Interview Stills Gallery
The complete first and second series plus feature length special of the award-winning Channel 4 comedy. Green Wing is the BAFTA® award-winning series that is part surreal soap, part innovative comedy drama--and largely set, despite a bizarre lack of medical content, in a hospital. Devised and produced by Victoria Pile, the show stars Tamsin Greig as the idiosyncratic Dr Caroline Todd; Julian Rhind-Tutt the fop-haired, wise-cracking heartthrob Dr Macartney; Steve Mangan the lustful love god Guy Secretan; Mark Heap the stammering, neurotic Statham; Pippa Haywood the tyrannical, age-obsessed Joanna Clore; Michelle Gomez the terrifyingly unpredictable staff liaison officer Sue White; Karl Theobald the endearing failure Martin Dear; and Oli Chris, Dr Statham's nemesis student, Boyce. Also stars Sally Philips as Mac s ex-girlfriend and Olivia Coleman as an overworked mother of four. Special Features Series 1: deleted scenes, audio commentary with cast & crew, behind-the-scenes featurette, cast & crew biogs Series 2: deleted scenes, audio commentary with cast & crew, behind-the-scenes featurette Special: deleted scenes, alternative ending, audio commentary with cast & crew, behind-the-scenes featurette
At last! One of the funniest comedy shows in recent memory finally makes its way to DVD. An offbeat comedy set in a hospital Green Wing throws in a bit of soap opera and a dose of the sketch-show to create something unique and absolutely hilarious! Created by the team behind Smack the Pony the series features some of the finest comedy cats to adorn our screens in quite some time. Green Wing follows new surgical registrar Dr Caroline Todd (T
Based on the novels by E.F Benson, this bitingly funny comic drama, adapted by Steve Pemberton, celebrates and lampoons the snobberies and pretensions of small-town life. Starring an acclaimed ensemble cast led by Miranda Richardson and Anna Chancellor in the title roles. Over the course of a 1930s summer the sly, scheming Miss Elizabeth Mapp and the gloriously haughty Mrs Emmeline 'Lucia' Lucas jockey for social supremacy in Tilling. This quaint English town may seem tranquil on the surface, but its eccentric inhabitants exist in a world seething with gossip, faddishness and petty one upmanship... As Mapp and Lucia go into battle, friends and neighbours rally to the flags. When the smoke clears which of the ladies will have won the dangerously well-mannered fight to be Tilling's finest?
The return of the drama about women struggling to cope while the men in their lives are on the inside. Career criminal's wife Francesca finds herself at the heart of an escalating gangland war, while Harriet is delighted that son Gavin appears to have forged a friendship with a group of Muslims. But it seems they are not all they appear to be. There are also two new characters - Kim, whose perfect world is turned upside down when her loving husband and the father of her three boys is accused of a terrible crime - and bride-to-be Aisling, exasperated that her repeat offender father is back in jail. Starring Polly Walker, Pippa Haywood, Iain Glen, Nicola Walker, Sally Carman, Karla Crome and Anne Reid.
Starring Academy Award Winner Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, Supernova is a heartwrenching modern love story about a couple struggling with a diagnosis of early-onset dementia who take a road trip together to reconnect with friends, family and places from their past.
Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the story of David Budd (Richard Madden), a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch (RaSP) of London's Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, could he become her biggest threat?
The complete sixth series of mirthful mismanagement mishaps from the hapless Gordon Brittas! After being crushed to death at the end of the last series Gordon Brittas spent a short time in Heaven which only served to annoy St Peter so much that he sent him back to earth to finish his mission. Gordon has spent the last six months being rebuilt in a Swiss clinic and returns to Whitbury Leisure Centre fighting fit after training runs in the Alps. Unfortunately in true Brittas fashio
An offbeat comedy set in a hospital The Green Wing throws in a bit of soap opera and a dose of the sketch-show to create something unique and hilarious! Following the sordid revelations and cliffhanging drama of series 1 the staff of Green Wing Hospital have reached unfathomable levels of perversity! Caroline finds herself back to square one with Mac while Sue White prepares to dig her Scottish claws into his mane-like ginger 'do; Joanna Claw has to come to terms with the fact that she accidentally slept with her son; Martin tries his hand at pimping; and Dr Statham enters politics under the proviso that his manifesto will be grammatically correct! Created by the team behind Smack the Pony be prepared for one of the most surreal journeys you're ever likely to take as you dive into the anarchic world of Green Wing Hospital!
The ultimate depiction of workplace perdition has to be Whitbury Leisure Centre in The Brittas Empire, despite the later claim of The Office to the title. And while David Brent seems all too uncomfortably real, Chris Barrie's Gordon Brittas carried the gung-ho officiousness of mediocre middle-management to its surreal conclusion. The Brittas Empire could never quite make up its mind if it was a quasi-realistic sitcom or a fantasy comedy, and it's this uneasy mixture that invites you to question whether there's anything terribly funny about unplanned single parenthood, childcare problems, assault in the workplace and women who are addicted to prescription drugs (see also Waiting for God) because of their partners' behaviour. Then, just as you're pondering all this, Brittas comes out with another mouthful of managerial psychobabble that makes you realise that only this kind of tragi-comic exaggeration is robust enough to stand up to Barrie's monstrous creation. This second series treads a fine line between the merely bleak and the really rather nasty with exquisite precision. It opens with the news that Brittas has been killed abroad in an industrial accident, prompting his tranquillizer-addled wife to mourn him for less time than it takes her to remarry--except, of course, that Brittas is alive and well. Along the way, receptionist Carole attempts to murder Brittas with a JCB when she mistakenly thinks he's assaulted her baby, which she keeps in a cupboard under her desk. On the DVD: The Brittas Empire, Series 2 carries all seven episodes on two discs, together with several extras including a gallery, a profile and a Brittas Management Quiz (don't ask!). --Roger Thomas
1991 – seven year-old Jane bears witness to the inexplicable murder of her mother. Jane saw the killer’s face but despite investigation his identity and motive remain unknown and to this day he roams free. Twenty-three years later Jane (Clare Goose - Mount Pleasant Exile Waking the Dead) is a grown woman married with a daughter of her own. Her mother’s murder still haunts her and the spectre of that man has stalked her into adult life. She wakes up and the thought of him is there… She goes to work and the thought of him is there… She returns home at night and the thought of him is there… One day she pays a routine visit to the local hospital and comes face to face with him. Jane is utterly convinced that she has found her mother’s killer a ghost from the past here in the flesh. She sets about trying to prove it any way that she can determined to bring to justice the man who took her mother away. But what if Andrew Rawlins (Peter Firth - World Without End Spooks) a well-respected doctor and a beloved family man is just as ordinary and innocent as he claims. After all Jane has been wrong before… Written by acclaimed writer Chris Lang (A Mother’s Son The Reckoning) this gripping and tense psychological thriller for ITV1 co-stars Felix Scott (Doc Martin Missing) Christine Bottomley (DCI Banks) and Pippa Haywood (Scott & Bailey).
A fourth series of leisure centre management mishaps with Gordon Brittas. Episodes comprise: 1. Not A Good Day... 2. The Christening 3. Biggles Tells A Lie 4. Mr Brittas Changes Trains 5. Playing With Fire 6. Shall We Dance? 7. The Chop 8. High Noon
The 1988 Carlton mini-movie The One Game is the perfect definition of cult TV. Originally shown as four Saturday night instalments, it was a success with audiences and critics alike at the time and remains an extremely original piece of television. On the surface, the story is as simple: an ex-business partner exacts a very personal revenge. The game being played by Magnus (an almost unrecognisable Patrick Malahide) upon the arrogant Nick (Stephen Dillon) makes the tale far more interesting, however. If the premise sounds a little familiar, that's because the 1997 Michael Douglas movie The Game has striking similarities. The show captured society's interest in games at exactly the right time. First there's the Arthurian context, which visually struck a chord with a decade of Dungeons and Dragons fans. Then there's the constant reference to the new dawn of computer games, which everyone was excited about going into the 90s. But Nick is embroiled in a theory of Reality Gaming that turns everything on its head. He doesn't know who of his friends or colleagues may be in on the game, and since it begins with the sting of a £2 million theft, he's prepared to make sacrifices along the way. Changes in fashion and technology can't detract from what remains a cracking good yarn, well told and well played. On the DVD: The One Game arrives on disc superbly packaged. The attractive box contains an informative booklet relating the show's place in TV history. Unfortunately there's nothing at all in the way of extras on the disc itself--a disappointment, which, like the 4:3 ratio and stereo sound, is only to be expected for an all-but forgotten gem. --Paul Tonks
An off-beat comedy set in a hospital Green Wing throws in a bit of soap opera and a dose of the sketch-show to create something unique and absolutely hilarious! Created by the team behind Smack the Pony the series features some of the finest comedy cats to adorn our screens in quite some time. Be prepared for one of the most surreal journeys you're ever likely to take as you dive into the anarchic world of Green Wing Hospital! Featuring all the episodes from series 1 and 2!
With their loved ones behind bars this acclaimed BBC drama tells the gripping stories of the women left behind... Series OneFrom the prison visiting room we follow the stories of Gemma whose perfect life is destroyed when her husband is arrested; Francesca the glamorous wife of a career criminal; Harriet a respectable mother whose tough love has seen her son imprisoned and Lou whose boyfriend has taken the rap for her crimes. Each are about to find their own way to get by while the men do their time... Series TwoFrancesca is back thrown into managing her gangster husband's business while long-suffering Harriet finds solace in the attentions of the prison chaplain. Meanwhile new visitors include bride-to-be Aisling the dynamic daughter of a repeat offender and the desperate Kim struggling to prove the innocence of her husband.
Broadcast between 1991 and 1997, The Brittas Empire is a sitcom set in Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. It stars Chris Barrie as Gordon Brittas, the prattish, blazered manager who remains loudly oblivious to the fact that his high-handed efforts at running the place result in utter calamity. As his gin-supping, nervous wreck of a wife observes, he thinks he's the oil that lubricates the machine but in reality he's "a bag of grit". This first series introduces Brittas, whose arrival at the new Centre prompts a rash of resignations as his petty and pedantic managerial methods constantly rebound on him. Mishaps in these episodes include a malfunctioning set of automatic doors, a disastrous wedding in the pool and a lost baby. Somehow, however, Brittas' strange sense of idealism keeps him bobbing up as all others sink into despair. The Brittas Empire could either be seen as a satire on the new tier of superfluous middle-management types who flourished in Tory Britain, or a 90s update of the old stereotype of the bureaucratic buffoon. Compared to, say, Alan Partridge, Brittas seems a bit broad and one-dimensional, a sketch-show character stretched beyond its limits. The rest of the cast don't offer much in the way of resistance or support and Brittas very swiftly becomes very annoying. Despite all problems, however, The Brittas Empire was an immense success, attracting over eight-million viewers at its peak. On the DVD: The Brittas Empire include some perfunctory, text-only items, including a Chris Barrie biography and a Brittas Fitness Quiz, as well as a sketch performed at the Royal Variety Performance of 1996, in which Brittas reveals himself as an enthusiast for conformity with EEC regulations. --David Stubbs
Gordon Brittas goes from strength to strength. Despite his failed endeavour and despite the endeavours of both his staff and his wife to depose him Whitbury Leisure Centre continues to thrive. Brittas continues to dream up new schemes to promote and improve the centre including a bungee jump sequential staff reviews and computerisation - all with the usual Brittas diplomacy aplomb and mayhem. Julie heavily pregnant embraces the bungee jump whereas Tim tries everything he ca
The fifth season of leisure centre mangament mishaps with the earnestly inept Gordon Brittas. The Old Old Story: ""Songs of Praise"" is to be presented from the newly rebuilt Whitbury Leisure Centre. However a series of accidents leads Brittas to believe that a serial killer may be on the loose in the Centre but he is determined that the recording of ""Songs of Praise"" should not be interrupted. Blind Devotion: Promotion is on the cards for one of the staff at Whitbury Le
The 1988 Carlton mini-movie The One Game is the perfect definition of cult TV. Originally shown as four Saturday night instalments, it was a success with audiences and critics alike at the time and remains an extremely original piece of television. On the surface, the story is as simple: an ex-business partner exacts a very personal revenge. The game being played by Magnus (an almost unrecognisable Patrick Malahide) upon the arrogant Nick (Stephen Dillon) makes the tale far more interesting, however. If the premise sounds a little familiar, that's because the 1997 Michael Douglas movie The Game has striking similarities. The show captured society's interest in games at exactly the right time. First there's the Arthurian context, which visually struck a chord with a decade of Dungeons and Dragons fans. Then there's the constant reference to the new dawn of computer games, which everyone was excited about going into the 90s. But Nick is embroiled in a theory of Reality Gaming that turns everything on its head. He doesn't know who of his friends or colleagues may be in on the game, and since it begins with the sting of a £2 million theft, he's prepared to make sacrifices along the way. Changes in fashion and technology can't detract from what remains a cracking good yarn, well told and well played. On the DVD: The One Game arrives on disc superbly packaged. The attractive box contains an informative booklet relating the show's place in TV history. Unfortunately there's nothing at all in the way of extras on the disc itself--a disappointment, which, like the 4:3 ratio and stereo sound, is only to be expected for an all-but forgotten gem. --Paul Tonks
David Suchet stars as Agatha Christie's enigmatic eccentric and extremely intelligent detective Hercule Poirot.
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