Comedy

• The Lavender Hill Mob (60th Anniversary Edition) | DVD | (01/08/2011) from £10.35   |  Saving you £5.64 (54.49%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Directed by Charles Crichton, who would much later direct John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda (1988), 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob is the most ruefully thrilling of the Ealing Comedies. Alec Guinness plays a bowler-hatted escort of bullion to the refineries. His seeming timidity, weak 'r's and punctiliousness mask a typically Guinness-like patient cunning. "I was aware I was widiculed but that was pwecisely the effect I was stwiving to achieve". He's actually plotting a heist. With more conventionally cockney villains Sid James and Alfie Bass in tow, as well as the respectable but ruined Stanley Holloway, Guinness' perfect criminal plan works in exquisite detail, then unravels just as exquisitely, culminating in a nail-biting police car chase in which you can't help rooting for the villains. The Lavender Hill Mob depicts a London still up to its knees in rubble from World War II, a world of new hope but continued austerity, a budding new order in which everything seems up for grabs; as such it could be regarded as a lighter hearted cinematic cousin to Carol Reed's 1949 masterpiece The Third Man. The Lavender Hill Mob also sees the first, fleeting on-screen appearance of Audrey Hepburn in the opening sequence. --David Stubbs

• Clash of the Santas | DVD | (09/11/2009) from £7.55   |  Saving you £5.44 (72.05%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Clash Of The Santas

• Richard Pryor - Live in concert | DVD | (31/05/2004) from £5.48   |  Saving you £10.51 (191.79%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Though Richard Pryor: Live in Concert was recorded (and released) in 1979, it took 25 years for the DVD to finally get a UK release. And, while it's tempting to look for a conspiracy involving Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy, who could have used their influence to delay this release for fear of the world realising where they got their schtick, the reality is this DVD was worth the wait. Not only has the entire concert been restored and remastered, they've also included a whole heap of extras. There's some footage of some of Pryor's early stand-up (hard to believe that the potty-mouthed comic started out as tame as Bill Cosby), footage from Pryor's doomed-from-the-start television show (an ill-thought-out prospect, really, considering the conservative nature of American TV) and a biographical booklet. So, it's definitely a value-for-money DVD (especially when you consider the relatively short running-time of the main feature). Of course, the star of this show is the original feature: Richard Pryor's full stand-up routine, recorded live in the 1970s. With his star firmly in the ascendant, Pryor was on fire, and his performance soon became a comedic legend. His style is casual and conversational--fundamentally, he's an excellent storyteller, and he has a knack for finding comedy inside of tragedy. At the time, his raunchy subject matter and use (some said "overuse") of, ahem, naughty words came as quite a shock to audiences, but Pryor went on to influence dozens of comedians to follow (in the process, becoming the highest ever paid comedian by the end of the 1970s). Richard Pryor: Live in Concert is a legendary performance by a legendary comedian, and an essential touchstone for modern comedy. --Robert Burrow

• The Prince And The Showgirl | DVD | (07/05/2001) from £5.81   |  Saving you £8.18 (140.79%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) was Marilyn Monroe's only British-made film and scores highly for curiosity value. There's something rather outrageous about this iconic American star playing a second-rate hoofer living in a theatrical boarding house in Brixton. Monroe herself is predictably good and touching as Elsie Marina, plucked from the chorus to entertain the Regent of Carpathia for the evening and ultimately smoothing his rough edges. There is, however, a rather uphill feeling all the way. The making of the movie was by all accounts a troubled experience for everybody concerned. Monroe, increasingly unreliable and exasperating, had an unsympathetic director in Laurence Olivier, also playing the Regent Charles, who hardly had the patience for a star of her mercurial talents with her own ideas of professional behaviour. His own performance as the Balkan royal is hammy and mannered and there isn't even a damp squib of sexual chemistry between them. Terence Rattigan's script, based on his successful play, is far too wordy and stage-bound. But somehow Monroe effervesces through all this adversity, aided considerably by British character actor Richard Wattis and the great Sybil Thorndyke, who became her ally during the difficult filming. Not vintage Marilyn but fascinating all the same, and she looks fantastic. On the DVD: The Prince and the Showgirl is presented in 4:3 with an occasionally muffled, apparently mono, soundtrack, giving this DVD a rather dusty quality which is in keeping with the vintage British 1950s production values. Extras include a cast list, original trailer and newsreel footage of the announcement that Marilyn was to make the film with Olivier, referred to at that stage as The Sleeping Prince. --Piers Ford

• Carry On Loving | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £9.06   |  Saving you £3.93 (43.38%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Setting a Carry On film in a marriage bureau has a certain self-serving obviousness, so it's hardly surprising that Carry On Loving milks the idea for all it's worth. The Wedded Bliss Agency is of course a pretty dubious outfit, being run by Sid (James) and Sophie Bliss (Hattie Jacques), who together are the worst possible example for both marriage and their own profession: they constantly snipe at each other, they aren't actually married and their sophisticated computer matching system is in fact a complete fake. The remainder of the team are mostly cast as hapless clients, with predictable but often very funny situations arising from the various mismatches engineered by the agency, such as the inevitable misunderstanding over one client's interest in modelling. Yes, the humour is about as subtle as a flatulent elephant, but you can't help entering into the spirit of the thing. If there's an outstanding performance it has to be that of Imogen Hassall, who handles her transformation from round-shouldered frump to well-bred love goddess with considerable expertise and a genuine sense of fun. --Roger Thomas

• The Campaign (DVD + UV Copy) | DVD | (21/01/2013) from £5.55   |  Saving you £10.44 (188.11%)   |  RRP £15.99

  When long-term congressman Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) commits a major public gaffe before an upcoming election, a pair of ultra-wealthy CEOs plot to put up a rival candidate and gain influence over their North Carolina district. Their man: naive Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), director of the local Tourism Centre. At first, Marty appears to be the unlikeliest possible choice but, with the help of his new benefactors' support, a cutthroat campaign manager and his family's political connections, he soon becomes a contender who gives the charismatic Cam plenty to worry about. As election day closes in, the two are locked in a dead heat, with insults quickly escalating to injury until all they care about is burying each other, in this mud-slinging, back-stabbing, home-wrecking comedy from Meet the Parents director Jay Roach that takes today's political circus to its logical next level. Because even when you think campaign ethics have hit rock bottom, there's room to dig a whole lot deeper. Special Features: Deleted Scenes

• Graham Norton : For Your Pleasure | DVD | (18/11/2002) from £4.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (301.41%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Featuring a montage of highlights from his weekly Friday night series, Graham Norton: For Your Pleasure is a splendid showcase of the slickly uproarious, impeccably vulgar chat show host who is part Frankie Howerd, part Dame Edna Everage, part Julian Clary, but mostly himself. He hosts this programme in elderly make-up, enjoying the ministrations of a young manservant. Norton fans will be familiar with the formula. Included here are quite outrageously lewd confessions from members of the audience, one of whom made love to a frozen chicken only to find his parents tucking into it the next day. But it's the guests who are the true staple of the show. Mostly women, mostly glamorous but just over the hill, and so willing to play good sports to Norton, they include Cher, Dolly Parton, Alison Moyet, Dolph Lundgren (who stoically endures Norton's flirtatious attentions) and David Ginola. The host doesn't so much interview his guests as regale them with surreal Internet clips of penguins tripping each other up or goats having heart attacks. They're also willing to dish a little dirt: Cybill Shepherd confides that "there was one thing Elvis didn't eat… 'til he met me". Norton has priceless fun with Sophia Loren, who he has order a pizza named after her over the phone and play in a mock-EastEnders sketch, as well as introducing Martine McCutcheon to the delights of the Hot Cock, a microwaveable penis substitute. It's gross, camp, crude yet pulled off with great panache. On the DVD: Graham Norton: For Your Pleasure comes with a droll commentary, in which Norton comments on the curious English accent Gillian Anderson adopted for the show and pours scorn on the cheapness of the props. He's also interviewed at length in his dressing room, where he proudly shows off the bizarre, vulgar and kitsch items viewers send him. Also interviewed is resident audience member Betty, elderly butt of his jokes, who reveals that her newfound fame enabled her to jump the queue at her orthopaedic ward. --David Stubbs

• The Trouble With Harry | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Trouble with Harry is a lark, the mischievous side of Hitchcock given free reign. A busman's holiday for Alfred Hitchcock, this 1955 black comedy concerns a pesky corpse that becomes a problem for a quiet, Vermont neighbourhood. Shirley MacLaine makes her film debut as one of several characters who keep burying the body and finding it unburied again. Hitchcock clearly enjoys conjuring the autumnal look and feel of the story, and he establishes an important, first-time alliance with composer Bernard Herrmann, whose music proved vital to the director's next half-dozen or so films. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Exit To Eden | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  On the S&M fantasy island of Eden the motto is ""If it hurts it's good"" and photographer Elliot Slater (Paul Mercurio) is about to find out just how painfully true that is. He's been sent to this kinky corner of paradise by his shrink in order to cure his strange sexual hang-ups. But kinky fantasies aren't his only problem. He's also accidentally snapped the boss of a diamond smuggling ring and now he's wanted by both sides of the law - they've followed the perverted photographer all

• Friends With Benefits | Blu Ray | (06/02/2012) from £8.94   |  Saving you £14.05 (157.16%)   |  RRP £22.99

  The relationship between two friends gets complicated when they decide to get romantic. Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) think it's going to be easy to add the act of sex to their friendship, but getting physical leads to complications!

• Father Of The Pride | DVD | (01/09/2014) from £4.90   |  Saving you £15.09 (307.96%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This prime-time computer animated series from Dreamworks was unceremoniously cancelled following declining ratings coupled with the high budget per episode (estimated at $1.6 million). The series follows a family of white lions who work as performers for Seigfried & Roy in Las Vegas where they and their animal friends are located in a town of their own going about day to day life outside of the jungle they were plucked from. John Goodman Cheryl Hines Orlando Jones and Carl Reiner h

• Anchorman 1-2 Box Set | DVD | (28/04/2014) from £10.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (127.39%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Anchorman: The Legend of Ron BurgundyThere was a time before cable when the local anchorman reigned supreme... Enter the hard-hitting world of 1970s local TV news where Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his loyal Channel 4 News Team (Paul Rudd Steve Carell and David Koechner) are San Diego's #1 rated news source. All is well in their male-dominated world of news until beautiful rising-star reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) turns it all upside down. Sparks don't just fly they ignite an all-out war between two perfectly coiffed anchor-persons. Anchorman 2: The Legend ContinuesSeven years after capturing the heart of his co-anchor and wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is offered the chance of lifetime: to be in on the world's first 24-hour global cable news network GNN in New York City. The newsman quickly rounds up his classic news team - sports guy Champ Kind (David Koechner) man on the street Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) - and heads to The Big Apple. Upon arriving he is quickly challenged by his strong female boss Linda Jackson (Meagan Good) Australian multi-millionaire network owner Kench Allenby (Josh Lawson) and a chiseled popular lead anchor Jack Lime (James Marsden). It's up to Ron and the team to find their own way to the top of news - and the top of the ratings.

• Mr. Popper's Penguins (DVD + Digital Copy) | DVD | (12/12/2011) from £4.74   |  Saving you £15.25 (321.73%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Based on the 1938 book of the same name by Richard and Florence Atwater, Mr. Popper's Penguins is a comedy about how the surprise appearance of a penguin at a New York businessman's door turns his life completely upside down, while simultaneously teaching him an important lesson about the value of family. Far from the small-town painter featured in the book, the film's Mr. Popper is a real estate developer who lives in an exclusive apartment on Park Avenue, has his sights set on becoming a partner in his firm, and is an every-other-weekend father to his two children. A ruthless developer with no time for anything but business, Mr. Popper resolves to deal with his father's parting gift of a penguin by getting rid of the annoying bird as quickly as possible. That process proves much more difficult than expected, even with the help of his ultra-efficient assistant Pippi, who speaks primarily in p's, and Mr. Popper soon winds up with six penguins. Even more unexpected is how markedly those penguins begin to affect the relationship between Mr. Popper and his children and how that change affects the rest of Mr. Popper's life. Jim Carrey's performance as Mr. Popper is very good--he capitalises on the many comic opportunities afforded by the idea of keeping penguins in a New York apartment while showing an uncharacteristic restraint that's quite refreshing. Ophelia Lovibond is quite comical as Pippi and Angela Lansbury also makes a strong appearance as one of Mr. Popper's potential business clients. As Pippi would say, the premise of the power of the penguin to promote personal prosperity and perpetuate personal peace positively prevails in Mr. Popper's Penguins. (Ages 7 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

• The Last Detail | DVD | (05/08/2002) from £23.83   |  Saving you £-10.84 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Last Detail nearly didn't get a release. Columbia, for whom it was made, was alarmed by the movie's barrage of profanity and resented the unorthodox working style of its director, Hal Ashby, who loathed producers and made no secret of it. Only when the film picked up a Best Actor Award for Jack Nicholson at Cannes did the studio reluctantly grant it a release--with minimal promotion--to widespread critical acclaim. Nicholson, in one of his best roles, plays "Bad-ass" Buddusky, a naval petty officer detailed, along with his black colleague "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young), to escort an offender from Virginia to the harsh naval prison at Portsmouth, NH. The miscreant is a naïve youngster, Meadows (Randy Quaid), who's been given eight years for stealing $40 from his CO's wife's favourite charity. The escorts, at first cynically detached, soon start feeling sorry for Meadows and decide to show him a good time in his last few days of freedom. Ashby, a true son of 60s counterculture, avidly abets the anti-authoritarian tone of Robert Towne's script. Meadows is a sad victim of the system--but so too are Buddusky and Mulhall, as they gradually come to realise. A lot of the film is very funny. Nicholson gets to do one of his classic psychotic outbursts--"I am the fucking shore patrol!"--and there are some pungent scenes of male bonding pushed to the verge of desperation. But the overall tone is melancholy, pointed up by the jaunty military marches on the soundtrack. Shot amid bleak, wintry landscapes, in buses and trains and grey urban streets, The Last Detail is a film of constant, compulsive movement going nowhere--a powerful, finely acted study of institutional claustrophobia. On the DVD: The Last Detail disc doesn't have much in the way of extras. There are abbreviated filmographies for Ashby, Nicholson and Quaid (though not for Young) and a trailer for A Few Good Men (1992). The mono sound comes up well in Dolby Digital, and the transfer preserves DoP Michael Chapman's subtle, subfusc palette and the 1.85:1 ratio of the original. --Philip Kemp

• The Money Pit - 80s Collection | DVD | (27/08/2018) from £9.56   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Return to the disco days of the 1980s in this exclusive collection, featuring ALL NEW ARTWORK that celebrates Generation X's neon dream decade, and the movies that defined it. Steven Spielberg presents this devastating comedy that literally brings the house down on Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. After being evicted from their Manhattan apartment, they buy the home of their dreams only to find it's a house of hilarious money-eating horrors. BONUS FEATURES: Making Of Theatrical Trailer

• Drop The Dead Donkey - The Complete Fourth Series | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £14.23   |  Saving you £5.76 (40.48%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This multi-award winning TV comedy show is set in the offices of 'Globelink News' a TV new company whose millionaire tycoon owner prefers a more sensationalist stance in presenting the day's events... Each episode of the show was recorded close to transmission allowing script changes to incorporate maximum topicality! Series 4 Episodes Comprise: 1. The Undiscovered Country 2. Quality Time 3. The Day Of The Mum 4. Births And Deaths 5. Helen's Parents 6. Sally In TV Times 7.

• Absolutely Fabulous - The Last Shout | DVD | (27/11/2000) from £4.97   |  Saving you £11.02 (221.73%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Absolutely Fabulous was first broadcast in 1992 and became an instant hit. Originally a sketch on the French and Saunders Show, Jennifer Saunders saw its potential and created one of the most ground-breaking and debauched comedies on British TV. Centred around the hip London fashion scene the series follows Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley), two women who refuse to grow up and are constantly on a mission to lose weight, gorging themselves with cocaine and/or champagne, endlessly throwing parties (or throwing up at parties), and sporting outrageous outfits which were the height of fashion at the time--honestly sweetie! The superb comic performances offered star status to Julia Sawalha as Edina's straight-laced daughter and Jane Horrocks as the sublimely dippy Bubble, and re-invented the careers of Joanna Lumley and June Whitfield. Saunders meanwhile secured her status as one of the top female comedians Britain has ever produced. Although its consciously chic clothing looks a little dated now, its mad characterisations endure and the jokes remain as hilariously slick and apt as ever. Ab Fab remains a landmark in TV since it was the first time that female comedians and writers had had the freedom and exposure to satirise problems close to their own heart, from their own perspective. With Feminist writers claiming that the ideals of feminism were dead in the 1990s and that female concerns were moving in the wrong direction--towards the "Laddette Culture"--and reports claiming that careers were taking a central role, forcing motherhood onto the back-burner, the series sought to embody and satirise these new supposedly "female" characteristics. As the show continued to grow in popularity both in Britain and the States, plans were made to transfer the formula to America. However, as with many other great British series, the content was considered too risky for American audiences due to the amount of sex and drug references. Thus domestic audiences breathed a sigh of release that their beloved Ab Fab would forever stay British to the core. --Nikki Disney

• M.A.S.H. - Season 9 | DVD | (09/01/2006) from £26.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (11.12%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Join Hawkeye and the MASH team for a ninth award-winning season of classic episodes from everyone's favourite (and funniest) mobile hospital! Episodes comprise: 1. The Best Of Enemies 2. Letters 3. Cementing Relationships 4. Father's Day 5. Death Takes A Holiday 6. A War For All Seasons 7. Your Retention Please 8. Tell It To The Marines 9. Taking The Fifth 10. Operation Friendship 11. No Sweat 12. Depressing News 13. No Laughing Matter 14. Oh How We Danced 15. Bottoms Up 16.

• When Harry Met Sally | Blu Ray | (04/02/2013) from £7.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (62.58%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Highly influential, When Harry Met Sally revitalised (in 1988) the moribund romantic comedy genre, made a superstar of Meg Ryan, and in two minutes of heavy breathing gave cinema one of its most memorable scenes. Set over 12 years in New York, young professionals Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Ryan) go from meeting to becoming friends to, well--this is a romantic comedy. Benefiting from an observant and witty script by Nora Ephron, it also offers insight into the differences between men and women. More importantly it's very funny, though the most hilarious scene is also the least believable: Sally is really too conventional to do that in a crowded restaurant. Knowingly modern, the picture's snappy one liners, neurotic honesty and straight-to-camera interludes are in the tradition of Woody Allen's New York Jewish humour, a prime example being Annie Hall (1976), while the inspired use of standards not only made a star of Harry Connick Jnr. but started a trend developed in Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and Love's Labour's Lost (2000). Perfectly played, with excellent support from Carrie Fisher, When Harry Met Sally is the archetypal modern romantic comedy. On the DVD: There's an excellent 33-minute documentary made in 2000 which interviews all the key players talking candidly not so much about how the film was made but why, and revealing just how much of it is actually based upon director Rob Reiner and star Billy Crystal's own experiences and personalities (the story about Reiner acting out the fake orgasm scene for Meg Ryan is priceless). There are seven short deleted scenes (easy to see why they didn't make the final cut) and a commentary track by Reiner, which contains a lot of space and does little more than repeat the information in the documentary. The anamorphically enhanced 1.77: 1 picture though a touch grainy in dark scenes is generally rich and detailed with excellent colour. Audio is stereo, and only blossoms when there is a song on the soundtrack. There are 14 subtitle options including English for Hard of Hearing.--Gary S Dalkin

• Everybody Loves Raymond - Series 1 | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.24   |  Saving you £34.75 (556.89%)   |  RRP £40.99

  The popular HBO sitcom 'Everybody Loves Raymond' now comes to DVD! Stand up comedian Ray Romano stars as Ray Barone a successful sportswriter and devoted husband to Debra who must deal with his brother and his parents who happen to live across the street. Frank and Marie love to meddle with his life while older brother Robert sometimes resents his success. Nevertheless Ray manages to keep a bright outlook and a sense of humour as he balances his family and work life.... E