"Director: Tony Palmer"

• The Fantastic World of Michael Crawford | DVD | (29/07/2013) from £9.43   |  Saving you £-2.44 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Michael Crawford has starred in some of the biggest box-office hits of all time. From Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, to the original Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, both in London's West End and on Broadway; from circus showman in Barnum to EFX, the multi- million extravaganza at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, then the biggest hotel in the world, which he dominated for over two years, playing Merlin, Houdini and H.G. Wells, and which broke all existing box office records. He is the ...

• The World of Peter Sellers | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £14.55   |  Saving you £-0.56 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The original uncut 1971 intimate study with and about the legendary actor which, as he later admitted, was 'the only portrait which really understood me'. Banned by the BBC at the time, this devastating film reveals the full tragedy of a man who had everything, but believed he had nothing. With contributions from Ringo Starr, Raquel Welch, Laurence Harvey, Yul Brynner, Harvey Orkin, Kenneth Tynan, Graham Stark and especially Spike Milligan and other friends who loved him.

• God Rot Tunbridge Wells - The Life Of Georg Frederic Handel | DVD | (28/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Tony Palmer: God Rot Tunbridge Wells - The Life of Georg Frederic Handel

• The Wagner Family | DVD | (21/02/2011) from £7.95   |  Saving you £6.04 (43.20%)   |  RRP £13.99

  This brand new DVD from the acclaimed director Tony Palmer tells thecontroversial story of the Wagner family. It was originally broadcast inSeptember 2009 on ITV1 as one of the final programmes of The South BankShow and is now being made available in an extended version.This is a film about a family, a family which has ruled the theatre in Bayreuth in southernGermany for the last 140 years, some say still the greatest threatre in the world. There'sno doubt that Richard Wagner who built it was the most influential composer in the whole of the 19th Century. But his family has survived a mixture of lies, deception, fraud and dangerous political alliances. The story of this family is a soap opera that makesCoronation Street look like Noddy-in-Toyland. It’s a family – in many ways the Royal familyof Germany – at war with itself.

• Henry Purcell - England My England | DVD | (03/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Tony Palmer directs this unique film drama about the great English composer Henry Purcell. Very little is known about his life but the script - by Charles Wood and the late John Osborne - solves this problem by launching a group of actors in the 1960s on a voyage of discovery into the 1660s & late-17th century England the extraordinary period in which Purcell lived. The all-star cast includes Michael Ball Simon Callow Corin Redgrave Letitia Dean John Shrapnel Robert Stephens and many other well-known names. But it is Purcell's music which is the driving force of this dramatisation with a stunning soundtrack performed by a line-up of superb artists such as Susan Graham Stephen Varcoe Lynne Dawson Nancy Argenta James Bowman and Michael Chance. The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists are conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

• The Kindness Of Strangers - A Portrait Of Andre Previn | DVD | (01/04/2001) from £12.55   |  Saving you £7.44 (59.28%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Director Tony Palmer's appreciation of André Previn, The Kindness of Strangers, takes its title from Previn's biggest work to date, A Streetcar Named Desire, an opera based on the play by Tennessee Williams. Blanche Dubois, the leading character, speaks of her reliance on the kindness of strangers to see her through her troubles. The preparation for the opera cuts between Previn's other activities and forms the riveting climax to the film as opening night approaches, though it remains a moot point why these sequences should be accompanied by the 'Romanza' from Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony? Despite struggling to hear his singers in a hopelessly inadequate orchestra pit, Previn's common sense and humour win through. The film has many instances of this, as when reporting an anecdote to an orchestra of young musicians, Previn tells them that conducting is not an exalted calling of limousines and mistresses but more often a case of knowing where to get your underwear laundered. Previn always has enjoyed the thrill of hearing his music performed fresh off the printed page from his first MGM title, The Sun Comes Up (starring Jeanette Macdonald and Lassie) to the San Francisco premiere of Streetcar. This beautifully shot film runs the gamut of his versatility, taking us to Germany to hear him conducting Ravel, advising a young conductor at Tanglewood on the complexity of a Richard Strauss score, playing Gershwin with bass player David Finck, and then at a haunt of yesteryear, a jazz club in New York: the nomadic life of an itinerant musician lives with him still it seems. This is an affectionate portrayal of a fine musician, sensitively directed. --Adrian Edwards

• John Osborne And The Gift Of Friendship | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With his 1956 play 'Look Back in Anger' British dramatist John Osborne renewed the emotional and rhetorical intensity of English theatre. Unfortunately misunderstanding and controversy surrounded most of his career. This program reconstructs Osborne's life and artistic journey using rarely seen archival films and firsthand accounts from the author's inner circle. A veritable who's who of the London stage appears here-including Laurence Olivier Albert Finney Nicol Williamson Rich

• The Salzburg Festival | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £13.69   |  Saving you £0.30 (2.19%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Director and composer Tony Palmer covers decades in the history of the Salzburg Festival with this documentary. Boasting both archival footage and contemporary interviews Tony Palmer's Film About The Salzburg Festival chronicles almost a century of iconic performances.

• Puccini | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £8.95   |  Saving you £5.04 (56.31%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Tony Palmer: Puccini

• Renee Fleming | DVD | (18/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Tony Palmer's film presents the first major exploration of the life and career of the great American soprano Renee Fleming - for many the epitome on the modern-day diva. Included are extracts from some of her most celebrated roles.

• Ivry Gitlis and the Great Tradition | DVD | (19/03/2012) from £14.55   |  Saving you £-0.56 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Tony Palmer's film about the legendary violinist Ivry Gitlis, who has been at the top of his profession for over sixty years. Probably the last of a great tradition, he is both our link to the past and our guide for the future. For most musicians, he is the violinist.

• Stravinsky - Once At A Border | DVD | (21/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A film biography of the famed 20th century composer Igor Stravinsky. Includes commentary by Robert Craft Marie Rambert George Balanchine Nadia Boulanger and others plus footage of Stravinsky on stage at the Champs-Elysees Theatre in Paris.

• John Osborne | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £11.57   |  Saving you £2.42 (17.30%)   |  RRP £13.99

  On May 8th 1956, Look Back in Anger changed theatrical history. It's a fact. But why? And in what ways? And could it possibly be true that Osborne wrote very little else of consequence, as some of his harshest critics maintain? And what exactly did his outbursts against the world in which he found himself really represent? Osborne believed in an England which he saw successive governments destroying, and saw himself as almost a lone voice screaming protest - it was as simple as that. But thi...

• The Space Movie | DVD | (07/05/2007) from £15.98   |  Saving you £4.00 (30.79%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The Space Movie was made at the request of NASA to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission which carried Neil Armstrong Michael Collins and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin on a historic journey. NASA and The United States National Archive made all the footage available for the very first time including never before seen film of the lunar landscape life aboard the spacecraft the Space Shuttle Mars Venus and beyond. Even more importantly NASA released the extraordinary soundtracks of the all the conversations between the astronauts and ground control in Houston. The film's soundtrack was written arranged and performed by Mike Oldfield. He used extracts from his ground-breaking symphonic tonepoems such as 'Tubular Bells' and 'Hergest Ridge' including previously unreleased orchestral versions and wound these in and out of the NASA soundtracks together with new music which was eventually released on the in a different form on 'Incantations'. The result is a unique soundtrack for a unique film.

• Sergei Rachmaninoff - The Harvest Of Sorrow | DVD | (30/07/2007) from £24.28   |  Saving you £-6.29 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Used in films like Brief Encounter and Shine; on TV in The South Bank Show and Panorama; on radio in Semprini Serenade; and including some of the most famous melodies of the 20th century Rachmaninoff's romantic passionate music is as popular today as it has ever been. This 100-minute documentary film shot in Russia Switzerland and America is made with the full participation of the composer's grandson Alexander Rachmaninoff. Featuring soloists Mikhail Pletnev (with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado and his own Russian National Orchestra) Dmitri Hvorostovsky and young stars Valentina Igoshina Peter Jablonski and Nikolai Putilin the music is specially recorded with the great conductor Valery Gergiev and the Orchestra and Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg with which Rachmaninoff was intimately associated. Tony Palmer's film with Rachmaninoff's own words spoken by Sir John Gielgud is a unique and loving insight into a world long gone but definitely not forgotten.

• Tangerine Dream -Live At Coventry Cathedral | DVD | (05/07/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £8.99

  Live At Coventry Cathedral

• John Adams - A Portrait Of John Adams - Hail Bop! | DVD | (14/08/2006) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A documentary focusing on music legend John Adams.

• Tony Palmer -All You Need Is Love Vol. 14 | DVD | (17/08/2009) from £8.15   |  Saving you £0.84 (9.30%)   |  RRP £8.99

  Over the past forty plus years British film director Tony Palmer has established himself as one of the country's foremost director's of documentary and factual based films. One of Tony Palmers first successes was the film All My Loving which was released in 1968. Some seven years later Tony had the idea, encouraged by John Lennon to document the history of popular music. The result was the groundbreaking and award winning series of films made for television under the title 'All You Need Is Lo...

• Tony Palmer - All You Need Is Love Vol. 12 | DVD | (06/07/2009) from £12.13   |  Saving you £-3.14 (-34.90%)   |  RRP £8.99

  Tony Palmer garnered the support of John Lennon in making this ambitious 1975 documentary series that chronicles the history of pop music. HAIL! HAIL! ROCK'N'ROLL! is the twelfth volume in the series and focuses on the history of Rock'n'Roll music, with a look at Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and more.

• Tony Palmer - All You Need Is Love Vol.3 | DVD | (16/03/2009) from £12.13   |  Saving you £-3.14 (-34.90%)   |  RRP £8.99

  A Live Performance