"Director: Stephen Poliakoff"

• Shooting The Past | DVD | (09/02/2004) from £8.94   |  Saving you £7.05 (78.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A country house situated in the London suburbs holds a collection of photography dating back through the last century. Plans have been raised to divide the collection and turn the house into a business school.... Three-part drama written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff about the battle to save a vast photographic library. A US property developer finds the library employees still ensconced in a London building he's come to renovate. After unsuccessfully trying to sell the pictures to an advertising agency Marilyn makes a personal plea to Anderson. Meanwhile Oswald begins an investigation into Anderson after seeing a picture of his mother in the library.

• Stephen Poliakoff's Gideon's Daughter | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Gideon Warner is a hugely successful public relations consultant to the wealthy to politicians to businessmen and rising starlets. Their hair their clothes where they go and with whom - Gideon advises them on everything. With all his skills he is the perfect man to package the Millennium celebrations and sell them to the rest of the world. But disillusioned with the world in which he works and increasingly concerned over the growing distance between him and his daughter Gideon

• Close My Eyes | DVD | (27/07/2009) from £9.98   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.13%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Stephen Poliakoff's film about a brother and sister raised separately who finally meet again. She is married to a man of ostentatious wealth; whilst her brother has a job monitoring developments in London's Docklands. In the overheated moneyed climate of the financially-centred late 1980s the two begin a forbidden incestuous affair.

• Perfect Strangers | DVD | (09/02/2004) from £11.10   |  Saving you £8.89 (80.09%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Perfect Strangers, Stephen Poliakoff's TV drama, depicts an upper-class English family where distrust, dysfunction and despair are guests at the party. "As you know, in all families, things happen", says the cool Lindsay Duncan. That's the premise: things happen, some of them nasty. The family, once "mini-Rothchilds" and still "drowning in money", are gathered together in an opulent hotel for a grand reunion; the only thing wrong with the idea is that many of them are perfect strangers and the event begins to look more like a conference than an event with heart. Into the blend of well-heeled guests comes the Hillingdon contingent led by Raymond (Michael Gambon), the black ram of the family. His son, Daniel, is a surveyor and true to his profession sets about assessing the fault lines running through the family. Underlying it all is a sense of unease so that even pleasantries come across as deeply unpleasant. Raymond warns us that: "Everybody always lies". Drama arises from the emergence of truth and buried bits of the past, as old photographs are screened to family members provoking curiosity about what lies behind the images. Scratch a surface and everywhere there's pain and mystery. Filmed in lavish London settings where everything is clean and sleek, Perfect Strangers makes for slick visual entertainment. Although the dialogue is stilted and at times surreal, the music by Adrian Johnston cannot be faulted. --Joan Byrne

• The Lost Prince | DVD | (20/01/2003) from £6.12   |  Saving you £9.87 (161.27%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A marvellous reinvention of the costume epic, The Lost Prince is Stephen Poliakoff's absorbing study of the turbulent years leading up to and during the First World War, seen through the percipient eyes of a scarcely remembered royal child. Extensively researched, impeccably cast, beautifully filmed, written and directed by Poliakoff himself with masterly economy and restraint, this is a timely reminder that original, intelligent drama can work as prime time entertainment while appealing on multiple levels; and there isn't an escaped soap star in sight. Johnnie, the prince kept hidden away by his parents Queen Mary and George V for fear that his epileptic fits and idiosyncratic ways might draw unwelcome attention, is not presented as a tragic figure. His view of the great events which shatter his family and change the world forever is direct and uncluttered. Poliakoff celebrates his apartness--and that of all children who are different--as a force for good, without judging the standards, protocols and contemporary medical theories which kept him on the periphery of society. The series makes the most of its well-chosen locations, and from Johnnie's garden at Sandringham to the assassination of the Russian imperial family, it maintains a hypnotic and elegiac quality The acting is first-rate, too. Gina McKee is profoundly moving as Johnnie's devoted nurse Lalla; and Miranda Richardson's Mary is an extraordinary performance, the controlled façade of single-minded focus occasionally fracturing to reveal a flash of humanity. This production is exquisite in every respect. On the DVD: The Lost Prince is presented in its original transmission format of 16:9. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, enhanced by Adrian Johnston's haunting score is crystal clear. Extras include Poliakoff's revealing commentary, with occasional input from Johnston and designer John-Paul Kelly, and a couple of documentary fragments which show the production in progress and place it in context with the rest of Poliakoff's work. --Piers Ford

• Glorious 39 | DVD | (29/03/2010) from £9.97   |  Saving you £8.02 (80.44%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Anne, a budding young actress, stumbles across secret recordings of a sinister Nazi appeasement plot that will stop at nothing to achieve its aims.

• Case Histories - Series 2 | DVD | (03/06/2013) from £10.49   |  Saving you £9.50 (90.56%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Award-winning dramatist Stephen Poliakoff blows open the volatile world of 1930s London, in a story about a black jazz band's rise to success, before violence and prejudice brings it crashing back to earth. Set in an extraordinary period of immense change, the Louis Lester Band arrives at the forefront of an emerging musical movement: jazz. As the band grows in popularity and starts to mix with the upper classes, the intoxicating combination of music, money and parties pull the characters in...

• Close My Eyes | DVD | (14/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Two siblings raised by different parents reunite as adults only to discover a deep passion for one another. Over a hot summer in London things have changed since they last met and Natalie the older sister is married to a hugely wealthy man and languishing in the home countries whilst Richard is seeking escape from the anxieties and pressure of working life. Overwhelmed by their love they struggle to overcome their addiction not wishing to hurt those around them and yet seemingly unable to part.

• Capturing Mary | DVD | (12/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A young man (Wynter) ushers an older woman (Smith) into a dark exploration of her past - back to the time when as a young girl she met a stranger who affected her life forever.

• Stephen Poliakoff | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £28.23   |  Saving you £33.52 (126.63%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Anne, a budding young actress, stumbles across secret recordings of a sinister Nazi appeasement plot that will stop at nothing to achieve its aims.

• Close To The Enemy: Season 1 | DVD | (02/01/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Set in a bomb damaged London hotel during the aftermath of World War 11 Close to the Enemy is a thriller that follows British intelligence officer Captain Callum Ferguson. His last task for the Army is to ensure that Dieter, a captured German Scientist develops cutting edge jet engine technology for the British. Such expertise is becoming vital to Britain as they try to maintain any kind of superiority in the emerging Cold War. Callum employs unorthodox methods in his attempt to convince Dieter to work for the British, eventually developing a friendship with him. A friendship which becomes threatened as those around him believe that the Dieter may have stood by as innocents in labour camps perished under the rule of the Nazi party.

• Friends And Crocodiles | DVD | (09/01/2006) from £8.14   |  Saving you £11.85 (145.58%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Paul Reynolds is a Gatsby-like figure: owner of a magnificent house a host of great parties and a collector of interesting people. He persuades Lizzie Thomas a secretary in a local estate agent to come and work for him as his assistant to bring some order to his chaos. He inspires her with his enthusiasm and imagination and frustrates her with his apparent carelessness and destructiveness which culminates in her calling the police as a great party is turned over by local troubl

• The Lost Prince | Blu Ray | (01/12/2008) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  1910. One dynasty holds sway over the most powerful nations of the world at its heart is the British Monarchy and its youngest member Prince Johnnie. A loving insightful and humorous child Johnnie is witness to some of the most momentous events in the history of our times. As a baby he is surrounded by the extravagant court of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at the height of British Imperial power. But as the Great War looms his newly crowned father George V and his mother Queen Mary become embroiled in the tumult of world affairs and do not have time to see their special child as he grows. He is prone to epileptic fits and the medical profession consider him to be an imbecile and as such an embarrassment to the family. As the landscape of Europe changes forever Johnnie is looked after in a remote farm house in the Sandringham estate by his devoted nurse Lalla. Dedicating her life to the little boy she determines to remind the monarchy that Johnnie is at heart a true prince.

• Joe's Palace | DVD | (05/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A drama centered on the relationship between Elliot (Gambon) a strange and wealthy Londoner and Joe (Wynter) a teenager who who takes care of an empty house Elliot owns.