Musicals and Stage

• Roustabout | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Elvis formula was well in place by the time of 1964's Roustabout, a concoction of undistinguished songs (anyone remember "Poison Ivy League"?), pretty girls, tight pants, a colourful setting and a little bit of karate to prove that Elvis really had been studying his martial arts. With that understood, Roustabout is a better-than-average work-out for the King--not as peppy as Viva Las Vegas, but a good deal livelier than the sleepwalking It Happened at the World's Fair. Elvis plays a bad-boy singer roaming the highways on his Japanese motorcycle; laid up after an accident, he joins a carnival owned by the feisty Barbara Stanwyck. ("This is not a circus, it's a carnival. There's a big difference.") The cast goes from high to low: both giant-sized future James Bond villain Richard Kiel and tiny Billy Barty are carny regulars, and Raquel Welch has a small role in the opening scene. Teri Garr is one of the carnival dancers behind Elvis. The legendary costume designer Edith Head puts Elvis in a series of snappy windbreakers, but thank goodness he's also in black leather a lot. As if that weren't enough to recommend it, the movie has a sequence involving Elvis riding a cycle inside the "Wall of Death", a huge wooden cylinder with high walls. This bit actually inspired an entire Irish film in 1986, Eat the Peach, in which friends build a similar contraption after they watch Roustabout on tape. --Robert Horton

• Kenneth Macmillan's Anastasia - Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky & Bohuslav Martin | DVD | (01/09/2017) from £20.35   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Great Ballets Bolshoi Vol.2 | Blu Ray | (30/11/2018) from £29.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Merry Widow: The Metropolitan Opera (Davis) | Blu Ray | (04/12/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Flying Down to Rio | DVD | (14/04/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1933, RKO Pictures had the bright idea of pairing Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond for their new musical blockbuster, Flying Down to Rio. The film was a smash, but not for the reasons anyone expected. The fourth and fifth-billed stars were an RKO bit player and a Broadway man breaking into Hollywood. Their names were Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and their pairing in this and eight subsequent RKO films would help to rewrite cinematic history. Most of Rio's screen time is spent on a humdrum romantic triangle involving Del Rio, Raymond and Raul Roulien, but Fred (as Fred Ayres) and Ginger (as Honey Hayes) are still able to establish many of the trademarks of their later films. Ginger fronts the band (with Fred on accordion) in the saucy "Music Makes Me", and Fred does some solo tap then sings and leads the band for the spectacular airborne finale featuring chorus girls perched on the wings of biplanes. The heart of the film is "The Carioca", a company dance extravaganza that would be imitated by "The Continental" and "The Piccolino" in later films. Here Fred and Ginger take the floor together for the first time; their eyes meet and their foreheads touch. Their dance lasts only a few minutes, but it was the highlight of the film and audiences wanted more. A prophetic moment occurs toward the beginning of the dance, when, after watching for a while, Fred grabs Ginger and tells her, "I want to try this. Come on, Honey". She declares, "We'll show 'em a thing or three". They did indeed. It was magic, and it was only the beginning. --David Horiuchi, Amazon.com

• Blue Man Group - The Complex Rock Tour - Live | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £19.90   |  Saving you £-4.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Blue Man Group are a group of artistes dedicated to creating exciting and innovative work in a wide variety of media. They are best known for their award-winning theatrical productions which critics have described as 'ground breaking' 'hilarious' 'visually stunning' and 'musically powerful'. These performances feature 3 bald and blue characters who take the audience through a multi-sensory experience that combines theatre percussive music art science and vauderville into a form

• Hindemith: Mathis Der Maler | Blu Ray | (13/08/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Magic Flute | DVD | (16/05/2023) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Pal Joey | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  First born in the pages of The New Yorker, then translated into a hit Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical, the title character of Pal Joey had undergone quite a transformation by the time he hit the movies in 1957. He was a singer, rather than a dancer, but more importantly he'd had his rough edges sweetly softened; the callous heel dreamed up by novelist John O'Hara was more of a naughty scamp in the film version. However, Pal Joey remains delightfully watchable for two very good reasons: a terrific song score and a surplus of glittering star power. Frank Sinatra, at the zenith of his cocky, world-on-a-string popularity, glides through the film with breezy nonchalance, romancing showgirl Kim Novak (Columbia Pictures' new sex symbol) and wealthy widow Rita Hayworth (Columbia Pictures' former sex symbol). The film also benefits from location shooting in San Francisco, caught in the moonlight-and-supper-club glow of the late 50s. Sinatra does beautifully with the Rodgers and Hart classics "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" and "I Could Write a Book" and his performance of "The Lady Is a Tramp" (evocatively shot by director George Sidney) is flat-out genius. Sinatra's ease with hep-cat lingo nearly outdoes Bing Crosby at his best, and included in the DVD is a trailer in which Sinatra instructs the audience in "Joey's Jargon", a collection of hip slang words such as "gasser" and "mouse." If not one of Sinatra's very best movies, Pal Joey is nevertheless a classy vehicle that fits like a glove. --Robert Horton

• The Tommy Steele Story | Blu Ray | (09/11/2020) from £13.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Verdi: Nabucco | DVD | (16/03/2015) from £3.82   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Because You're Mine | DVD | (24/02/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Morricone Conducts Morricone | DVD | (22/01/2016) from £14.65   |  Saving you £3.34 (22.80%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A genuine premier and over and above that starring the biggest motion picture composer of the present day: Ennio Morricone.Morricone is well-known to moviegoers his soundtracks are invariably warmly melodic and superbly suited to the films they grace.Including film clips!

• Verdi - La Traviata | Blu Ray | (01/04/2011) from £20.69   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Wagner: Der fliegende Holl?nder | Blu Ray | (08/07/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Happy Go Lovely | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Niven plays a rich bachelor the head of a successful greeting-card company in Scotland essentially a kind man but respectable to the point of stodginess and extreme stuffiness. An American troupe wants to produce a musical in town but has trouble getting backers. Niven's character meets several of the leading ladies of the show; through a misunderstanding he doesn't correct they come to think that he's a newspaper reporter. He falls in love with one of the women who reciprocates; he grows more lively and friendly to the surprise of his employees...

• Puccini: Turandot | DVD | (05/06/2020) from £19.88   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Beat Street | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A slightly dated but nonetheless fascinating snap shot of musical history, Beat Street is an urban musical detailing the roots of hip-hop. Set in early 1980s New York, the film focuses on the lives of a small group of young people setting their experiences against the larger backdrop of the city's burgeoning music scene. The story of up and coming DJ Kenny and his relationship with jazz musician Tracy may only be a device, but it's surprisingly effective, as is the ultimately tragic tale of graffiti artist Remo. The movie's real raison d'être, however, is to showcase the sounds of the street and thus is full of some of hip-hop's most influential names--Melle Mel, Doug E Fresh, Kool Moe Dee, The Rocksteady Crew, Jazzy Jeff and Arthur Baker--and while the combination of electro and rapping may sound a little crude to modern ears, there can be no doubt that Beat Street is the sight and sound of history being made. On the DVD: Beat Street on disc comes with pretty basic picture quality, but the soundtrack has benefited greatly from the digital remastering. The extras are limited to a collection of stills from the film and an amusing guide to break beats, which seems like a wasted opportunity. Given the nature of the movie, it's something of a shame that this disc doesn't go deeper into the subject matter. For a far more detailed examination of how the music of Kraftwerk blended with the sounds of American city streets, go to Volume 3 of the excellent BBC series Dancing in the Street. --Phil Udell

• Rusalka | DVD | (09/07/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Purcell: Dido And Aeneas | Blu Ray | (14/01/2022) from £21.40   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A