"Actor: Russell Hunter"

• Callan - Wet Job | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £16.95   |  Saving you £-1.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Featuring an electrifying performance from Edward Woodward Callan explored the dingy twilight world of the professional spy and presented what was until that point television s most realistic portrayal of government espionage - becoming a national phenomenon in the 1960s and making Woodward one of the highest profile actors on television. This single play originally aired in 1981 and scripted by series creator/writer James Mitchell saw the reluctant killer pressed into service one last time. Reuniting Callan and his malodorous sidekick Lonely (Russell Hunter) the play also stars George Sewell Hugh Walters (as Hunter) Anthony Smee and Helen Bourne. Ten years on David Callan hasn't changed much. Retirement has brought a new identity a new mistress and a new business in the form of a militaria shop; but he finds that once a secret-service operative always a secret-service operative when a call summons him to headquarters and a meeting with the fourth Hunter of his career - a past Callan thought dead and buried. Reactivating it is no pleasure - but it has to be done.

• Callan - The Monochrome Years | DVD | (22/02/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Edward Woodward gives an electrifying performance as a reluctant professional killer working for British Intelligence. Callan became a national phenomenon in the late 1960s making Woodward one of the highest profile actors on television and paving the way to his eventual career in America on shows like The Equalizer. Created by James Mitchell (When the Boat Comes In) and exploring the dingy twilight world of the professional spy Callan was the antithesis of James Bond (back in the days of Connery and Moore) and presented until that point television's most realistic portrayal of government espionage. This set contains the original Armchair Theatre pilot play A Magnum for Schneider along with all the remaining black and white episodes from series one and two - unseen in nearly forty years and available on any format for the first time.

• The Vital Spark | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £19.37   |  Saving you £-9.38 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  JOIN THE original crew of the good ship Vital Spark on their precarious voyage of life through the uncharted seas of change. Or more precisely - up and down the Clyde.In A Drop o' the Real Stuff wily Captain Para Handy gets the crew involved in whisky smuggling and in Bad Luck Cargo never the one to miss an opportunity the Cap'n takes possession of an unwanted headstone with a view to making a killing on the resale.It's near mutiny when the crew of the Vital Spark are invited to the wedding of the year - all except Dan... having been at sea for a considerable time it's inevitable that the odd Quarrel will break out. And the sparks really fly when the Cap'n gives Dan his jotters - is it the end of the line for the Vital Spark and her crew?Finally enjoy a Highland Voyage with the crew old and new aboard the steamer as she takes a musical journey around the Scottish isles.A welcome return for an old comedy classic which truly has stood the test of time and is a must for any connoisseur of classic Scottish comedy.The only remaining episodes of the classic BBC series.

• The Gaffer - The Complete Series | DVD | (11/10/2010) from £31.92   |  Saving you £-6.93 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Bill Maynard (Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt!) is Fred Moffat the tight-fisted yet quick-thinking director of a struggling light-engineering firm in this cleverly scripted bittersweet sitcom which regularly attracted audiences of over 16 million. The recession is biting and the Gaffer finds himself under siege from the taxman his creditors his bank manager... and just about everyone else. He sometimes resorts to extreme measures to keep his head above water and is permanently at odds with militant shop steward Harry (Russell Hunter - Callan). But glamorous secretary Betty (Pat Ashton) is always around to lighten the mood - even if she rarely succeeds in getting Harry and Fred to see eye-to-eye... Presented here are all three series of this hugely popular sitcom from Yorkshire Television.

• The Edward Woodward Hour | DVD | (28/03/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

• Vanilla Sky / The Firm / Mission: Impossible 2 | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Tom Cruise Collection. Vanilla Sky: David Aames (Tom Cruise) appears to lead a charmed life. Handsome wealthy and charismatic the young New York City publishing executive's freewheeling existence is enchanting yet he seems to be missing something. Then in one night David meets Sofia (Penelope Cruz) the girl of his dreams but loses her by making a small mistake. Thrust unexpectedly onto a roller-coaster ride of romance comedy suspicion love sex and dreams Davi

• Up Pompeii / Up The Chastity Belt | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Up Pompeii: A funny thing happens to Lurcio (Frankie Howerd) on the way to the rent-a-vestal-virgin market stall. A mysterious scroll falls into his hands listing the names of all the conspirators plotting to murder Emperor Nero. And when the upstart slave is elected to infiltrate the ringleader's den the comical ups-and-downs lead to total uproar. Up The Chastity Belt: A funny thing happened to Lurkalot serf to Sir Coward de Custard on the way to Custard Castle. Lurkalot sells lusty love potions and rusty chastity belts in the market place but on this day Sir Graggart de Bombast arrives to sack the castle and to get the lovely Lobelia Custard in the sack! Lurkalot must help Custard cream the knight in pining armour...

• Lord Peter Wimsey - Five Red Herrings | DVD | (03/08/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ian Carmichael stars as the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey in this classic BBC adaptation of the novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. When Lord Peter goes on holiday to Scotland he is hoping to do nothing more strenuous than catch some trout. Even Wimsey's loyal servant Bunter is looking forward to taking some time off to go painting. However when Bunter notices an easel in the distance but no sign of the artist Lord Peter is called into action. The easel belongs to an unpopular local artist Campbell whose body is discovered lying on the rocks below the popular vantage point. Was it an accidental fall? Wimsey suspects not and with six possible suspects he must use all of his detective skills to determine the five red herrings and expose the murderer.

• Shadows - The Complete First Series | DVD | (22/11/2010) from £12.98   |  Saving you £2.00 (18.20%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Jenny Agutter (The Railway Children) Sophie Ward (A Dark Adapted Eye) Russell Hunter (Callan) John Nettleton (Yes Minister) and Pauline Quirke (Birds of a Feather) feature among the casts of this spine-tingling anthology series for younger viewers. Atmospheric superbly scripted and filled with the unexpected between 1975 and 1978 Shadows offered psychological and supernatural tales in which characters typically found themselves plunged into strange alternative realities or encountering ghostly figures from the past - the young protagonists' otherworldly experiences often playing upon common teenage fears and preoccupations. Among the contributors for this first series were novelist and playwright J.B. Priestley who co-wrote 'The Other Window' with his third wife archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes Roger Marshall (Public Eye) and Ace of Wands creator Trevor Preston who revived the character of magician Mr. Stabs for 'Dutch Schlitz's Shoes'. A girl is visited by the spirit of a long-dead witch in a storm-lashed cottage... In Victorian London a mysterious voice calls to a young woman beckoning her to another time and place... For a group of teenagers a visit to a Tudor mansion turns into a nightmare as the sinister inhabitants of the house begin to take over...

• Danger - Marmalade at Work - The Complete Series | DVD | (19/08/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The hugely successful sequel to Educating Marmalade, Danger - Marmalade at Work charts the ongoing misdeeds and misadventures of 'the worst girl in the world' as she's launched into a series of work-experience placements. From showbiz at the New York School for Show-Offs and Big-Heads to the Secret Service, from cookery at Heartburn Hall to a stint on The Grotty Shark under Captain Blight, there isn't a profession that remains safe from the social menace that is Marmalade Atkins! Charlotte C...

• Bulldog Breed, The / One Good Turn | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1960, Norman Wisdom was left all at sea in The Bulldog Breed. He had already made a farce of the army in The Square Peg (1958), so what better than to join the navy? Back in the real world, the Russians had kick-started the space race putting Sputnik into orbit, so Norman rapidly finds himself selected to be the first Brit in space. Playing to type, the result is excellent physical comedy and copious tomfoolery at the expense of the upper ranks. With support from John Le Mesurier and Edward Chapman (the legendary "Mr Grimsdale") and uncredited appearances from Oliver Reed and Michael Caine, this is a notable British comedy, with an unusually direct reference to the risqué Carry On movies. For his second starring role Norman Wisdom played the oldest orphan of Greenwood Children's Home in 1954's One Good Turn. Not only does he have to find the money to buy one of the orphans a model car, but after a visit to Brighton he discovers Greenwood is due to be closed down by the home's own unscrupulous chairman, a property developer with plans to build a factory on the site. Also starring Thora Hird, One Good Turn was surely a film with a personal resonance for Wisdom who was himself brought-up in an orphanage after his mother died and his father was unable to raise him. As would become a tradition, he contributes a song, "Please Opportunity", and the movie, though produced by Rank, now sits easily in that classic Ealing era where the ordinary man took on the big guys and won. The innocent knockabout humour remains appealing. --Gary S Dalkin

• Lilli Marlene | DVD | (15/06/2009) from £16.25   |  Saving you £-3.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Lilli, (Lisa Daniely) the french girl whose song Lilli Marlene is loved by the Germans and allies, is captured by the Nazis and rescued by the British after being forced to broadcast the song for the Germans. Lilli, (Lisa Daniely) the french girl whose song Lilli Marlene is loved by the Germans and allies, is captured by the Nazis and rescued by the British after being forced to broadcast the song for the Germans.

• Paradise | DVD | (14/09/2015) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (61.60%)   |  RRP £12.99

  From the writer of Juno comes the hilarious new comedy Paradise. Lamb Mannerheim's (Julianne Hough) faith is shaken after a plane crash burns two-thirds of her body and she shocks her small-town congregation when she publicly renounces God. As she sets out to experience the worldly pleasures of Las Vegas she meets a bartender William (Russell Brand) and a cynical lounge singer (Octavia Spencer) who help her check off as many dirty deeds as possible from her Napkin of Sin bucket list.

• American Cousins | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £17.89   |  Saving you £-4.90 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Two American mafiosi take refuge in the Glasgow cafe owned by their cousin but find their relative isn't the tough guy they'd expected.

• Callan - Series 1 Box Set | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Introduced in "A Magnum for Schneider", the hour-long 1967 Armchair Theatre episode of Callan written by James Mitchell about a disillusioned British secret agent of the same name (starring Edward Woodward), went on to offer four popular (if downbeat) series, a spin-off movie remaking the original story and a some-years-later wrap-up play "Wet Job". Remembered for its very distinctive opening titles, with a swinging broken-light bulb and a memorable theme tune, the series adopted a Deighton-LeCarré approach to the grim, treacherous, grubby business of Cold War espionage and made a TV star of the intense Woodward as the sweaty, sometimes conscience-stricken, sometimes robotic Callan. Even in the 21st century this still seems as strong, its complex stories and impressive performances outweighing a low-budget mix of video and film in the production that makes it seem less "professional" than other shows of the time. A great deal of the series opener is devoted to bringing on new regulars. There's a fresh Mr Hunter who, like Number Two on The Prisoner--with which Callan shares series editor George Markstein--was a title not a name, so several actors held the position over the course of the show. There's also the trendily mulleted thug Cross (Patrick Mower), who would go spectacularly off the rails in the next series and a half. In a dramatic device that has long since fallen out of fashion in television, Callan episodes tend to wind up by leaving the audience to work out all the connections of the plot while Callan himself sits gloomily and ponders the wretchedness of his squalid world. --Kim Newman

• Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete Season Three (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (04/08/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Lord Peter Wimsey - Five Red Herrings ) | DVD | (27/12/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Based on the series of novels written by Dorothy L Sayers in the 1920s and 30s, Lord Peter Wimsey was dramatised for TV by the BBC between 1972-5. Ian Carmichael, veteran of British film comedy, played the genial, aristocratic sleuth; Glyn Houston was his manservant Bunter. The pair are similar to PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie Wooster (whom Carmichael played in an earlier TV adaptation) though here the duo are equal in intelligence, breezing about the country together in Wimsey's Bentley and stumbling with morbid regularity upon baffling murder mysteries to test their wits. Those for whom this series forms hazy memories of childhood might be surprised at its somewhat stagy, lingering interior shots, the spartan paucity of music, the miserly attitude towards locations, especially foreign ones, and the rather genteel, leisurely pace of these programmes, besides which Inspector Morse seems like Quentin Tarantino in comparison. It seems that initially the BBC was reluctant to commission the series and ventured on production with a wary eye on the budget. The Britain depicted by Sayers is, by and large, populated by either the upper classes or heavily accented, rum-do-and-no-mistake lower orders, which some might find consoling. However, the acting is generally excellent and the murder mysteries are sophisticated parlour games, the televisual equivalent of a good, absorbing jigsaw puzzle. There were five feature-length adaptations in all. "Five Red Herrings" is the last and perhaps the least of the series, involving a trout fishing holiday interrupted by the death of a local artist. --David Stubbs

• Callan - Series 1 - Part 2 Of 3 - Episodes 4 - 6 | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Introduced in "A Magnum for Schneider", the hour-long 1967 Armchair Theatre episode written by James Mitchell about a disillusioned British secret agent Callan (Edward Woodward), went on to offer four popular (if downbeat) series, a spin-off movie remaking the original story and a some-years-later wrap-up play "Wet Job". Remembered for its very distinctive opening titles, with a swinging broken light bulb and a memorable theme tune, the series adopted a Deighton-LeCarré approach to the grim, treacherous, grubby business of Cold War espionage and made a TV star of the intense Woodward as the sweaty, sometimes conscience-stricken, sometimes robotic Callan. Even in the 21st century this still seems a strong show, its complex stories and impressive performances outweighing a low-budget mix of video and film in the production that makes it seem less "professional" than other shows of the time. In a dramatic device that has long since fallen out of fashion in television, Callan episodes tend to wind up by leaving the audience to work out all the connections of the plot while Callan himself sits gloomily and ponders the wretchedness of his squalid world. --Kim Newman

• The Gaffer - Series 1 | DVD | (17/08/2009) from £10.78   |  Saving you £2.21 (20.50%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Gaffer: Series 1

• Callan - Series 1 - Part 1 Of 3 - Episodes 1 - 3 | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £6.98   |  Saving you £9.01 (129.08%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Introduced in "A Magnum for Schneider", the hour-long 1967 Armchair Theatre episode of Callan written by James Mitchell about a disillusioned British secret agent of the same name (starring Edward Woodward), went on to offer four popular (if downbeat) series, a spin-off movie remaking the original story and a some-years-later wrap-up play "Wet Job". Remembered for its very distinctive opening titles, with a swinging broken-light bulb and a memorable theme tune, the series adopted a Deighton-LeCarré approach to the grim, treacherous, grubby business of Cold War espionage and made a TV star of the intense Woodward as the sweaty, sometimes conscience-stricken, sometimes robotic Callan. Even in the 21st century this still seems as strong, its complex stories and impressive performances outweighing a low-budget mix of video and film in the production that makes it seem less "professional" than other shows of the time. A great deal of the series opener is devoted to bringing on new regulars. Theres a fresh Mr Hunter who, like Number Two on The Prisoner--with which Callan shares series editor George Markstein--was a title not a name, so several actors held the position over the course of the show. Theres also the trendily mulleted thug Cross (Patrick Mower), who would go spectacularly off the rails in the next series and a half. In a dramatic device that has long since fallen out of fashion in television, Callan episodes tend to wind up by leaving the audience to work out all the connections of the plot while Callan himself sits gloomily and ponders the wretchedness of his squalid world. --Kim Newman