"Actor: Spencer Banks"

• Timeslip | DVD | (21/12/2020) from £59.92   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 26 episodes from the 1970 children's series originally dreamed up by Ruth Boswell ('Tomorrow People'), in which two fifteen-year-olds, Liz (Cheryl Burfield) and Simon (Spencer Banks), travel through time. In 'The Wrong End of Time' (6 episodes), Liz and Simon travel back through time to a World War 2 naval base, where they are arrested on suspicion of spying. In 'The Time of the Ice Box' (6 episodes), Liz and Simon try to get back to the present, but instead they find themselves in an Arctic wasteland in the year 1990, where scientists in an underground research base try to involve them in a series of bizarre and destructive experiments. 'The Year of the Burn Up' (8 episodes) is a prescient portrayal of global warming. The children return to 1990 (but a different version as they have successfully managed to alter the past). They find the world ruled by the Technocrats, a scientifically advanced elite with a masterplan to reshape the world - but can they stop their destructive scheme that could bring about the end of the world? In the last of the four storylines, 'The Day of the Clone' (6 episodes), the children return to the present day, but Liz is immediately kidnapped and Simon sets off to find her. His search leads him through the time barrier back to the government research centre, where he finds Liz, and the children uncover masterplans for the 'Ice Box' and the 'Burn Up' they fought so hard to destroy.

• Penda's Fen (Limited Edition Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (23/05/2016) from £14.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (33.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  During the last summer of his boyhood, Stephen has a very clear and intense view of the world. Awakening a buried force in the landscape around his home, he finds it trying to communicate some warning, a peril he is in; some secret knowledge; some choice he must make, some mission for which he is marked down. In one young man's search for his sense of self, writer David Rudkin takes us on a magnificently ambiguous metaphysical journey quite unlike any other TV play. The cult status of Penda's Fen is no doubt due to its potent mix of mysticism, music and landscape which taps into an elemental truth about who we are and our pagan past. Directed by Alan Clarke (Scum, The Firm) Penda's Fen is widely considered to be writer David Rudkin's finest work. Remastered in HD and presented on Blu-ray for the very first time.

• Penda's Fen (DVD) | DVD | (23/05/2016) from £18.75   |  Saving you £1.24 (6.61%)   |  RRP £19.99

  During the last summer of his boyhood, Stephen has a very clear and intense view of the world. Awakening a buried force in the landscape around his home, he finds it trying to communicate some warning, a peril he is in; some secret knowledge; some choice he must make, some mission for which he is marked down. In one young man's search for his sense of self, writer David Rudkin takes us on a magnificently ambiguous metaphysical journey quite unlike any other TV play. The cult status of Penda's Fen is no doubt due to its potent mix of mysticism, music and landscape which taps into an elemental truth about who we are and our pagan past. Directed by Alan Clarke (Scum, The Firm) Penda's Fen is widely considered to be writer David Rudkin's finest work. Remastered in HD and presented on DVD for the very first time.

• Timeslip: The Complete Series | DVD | (27/06/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £28.22

  This groundbreaking ATV children's drama memorably blends hard science and fantasy in its tale of two teenagers who discover the existence of a 'time barrier' enabling them to travel to different periods and locations from World War Two to the Antarctica of the future.Devised by The Tomorrow People's Ruth Boswell, Timeslip was unabashedly intelligent and often prescient in its theme of the use and abuse of science. Well remembered to this day as a benchmark of 1970s drama, this set contains all 26 episodes.Three children have vanished from the tiny Midlands village of St Oswald. First to disappear is local girl Sarah, then Simon Randall and Liz Skinner, who are on holiday with Liz's parents. Only Commander Traynor, an apparent stranger to the area, can offer some idea of where they are and that idea is so incredible and horrifying that the Skinners cannot believe it...

• Pennies From Heaven | DVD | (31/05/2004) from £19.95   |  Saving you £10.04 (50.33%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Dennis Potter's astonishing six-part miniseries Pennies from Heaven remains one of the edgiest, most audacious things ever conceived for television. The story tells of one Arthur Parker (Bob Hoskins), a sheet-music salesman in 1930s England. Beaten down by economic hard times and the sexual indifference of his proper wife (Gemma Craven), Arthur cannot understand why his life can't be like the beautiful songs he loves. On a sales trip through the Forest of Dean, he meets a virginal rural woman (Cheryl Campbell) he suspects may be his ideal. Ruination follows. Punctuating virtually every scene is a vintage pop song--lip-synched and sometimes danced out by the characters. This startling innovation makes the contrast between Arthur's brutish life and his bourgeois dreams even more dramatic. Potter's dark vision digs into British stoicism, sexual repression, the class system and even the coming of fascism in Europe. But it is especially poignant on the subject of the divide between art and reality. Piers Haggard directs the long piece with deft transitions between songs and story. (It was shot partly on multi-camera video, partly on film.) The cast is fine, especially the extraordinary Cheryl Campbell, who imbues her character with keen intelligence and no small measure of perversity. Bob Hoskins triumphs in his star-making part, bringing a demonic energy to his small-time Cockney, nearly bursting his button-down vests with frustration and appetite. Pennies from Heaven was remade in 1981 for the big screen (with Steve Martin), in an interesting, Potter-scripted adaptation; it's one of the reasons the original has been unavailable on home video for so long. --Robert Horton

• Tightrope - The Complete Series | DVD | (03/09/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Timeslip star Spencer Banks, John Savident (Coronation Street) and future BAFTA-winning producer and director David Munro star in a tense thriller for young viewers which brilliantly captures the paranoia of the Cold War. Created and written by Victor Pemberton, whose previous writing credits included Dr Who and Ace of Wands, Tightrope was first screened in 1972. All thirteen half-hour episodes have been transferred from the available film elements specifically for this release. Martin Clifford lives in a quiet English village and is busy studying for his 'A' levels when he suddenly finds himself at the centre of a dangerous international espionage plot. Beneath the outwardly calm surface of Redlow lies an intricate network of spies and counterspies, with the focus of attention the USAF base nearby - soon to become the communications centre for top-secret NATO exercises. Martin, commissioned by British Intelligence to help uncover enemy agents in the village, finds his life balanced precariously on a tightrope; one false move on either side, and he could fall to his death.

• The Georgian House | DVD | (24/05/2010) from £9.34   |  Saving you £0.41 (5.41%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Eerie, unsettling and one of the key children's TV productions of the 1970s, The Georgian House was written by acclaimed author Jill Laurimore with noted producer/writer Harry Moore (The Clifton House Mystery, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and produced by the renowned Leonard White (The Avengers, Armchair Theatre). Cult children's television actor Spencer Banks (Timeslip, Tightrope) stars alongside Jack Watson (Sky, Arthur of the Britons) in a series that The Stage lauded as visually rich, sumptuously produced [and] a quality production.Though made as a seven-episode series, unfortunately only a few episodes are now known to exist - two in original transmission format and one on home video held in private hands. Long sought by archive TV collectors, this release includes all three remaining episodes of The Georgian House - episodes one, three and seven.Two students, Abbie and Dan, take a holiday job in a museum that 200 years ago was the home of the Leadbetter family. The pair are drawn to an African carving which suddenly emits a voice summoning them back in time to 1772. Dan is transformed into a kitchen boy and Abbie becomes a member of the Leadbetter household. They soon realise they have a task to fulfil before they can return to their own time - helping a black servant with strange powers who is about to be sent back to the misery of the sugar plantations...

• Timeslip - Series 1 To 4 | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  'Timeslip' has a special hold on the memories of those children who saw it when it was first broadcast in the 70s however it has been long gone...until now! When a young girl vanishes near a derelict naval station in St Oswald a fantastic series of events is set in motion which sends teenagers Simon Randall and Liz Skinner backwards and forwards time. The Wrong End Of Time Teenager Sarah enters a private but deserted Ministry of Defence field. Hearing a strange noise she