"Actor: Alastair Miles"

• Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg | Blu Ray | (02/09/2012) from £28.55   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Handel: The Messiah | DVD | (31/10/2000) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The most popular and well-loved of all Handel's great oratorios, The Messiah here receives warm if not exactly passionate treatment under the direction of Stephen Cleobury. This is a period-instrument performance featuring Roy Goodman and his Brandenburg Consort, although not one that aims at any inflexible authenticism. The four soloists are all of the first rank, as are, of course, the choristers of King's College, Cambridge. So, musically the concert's credentials are impeccable. The setting is the Pieterskerk, Leiden, which at least boasts a sympathetic acoustic even though its visual beauties are hidden in candlelit gloom. It must have been a charming evening for the audience, but the film version doesn't really have anything more to offer the home viewer than a few close-ups of the soloists and the occasional cutaway shot of an appropriate painting. Hence, this disc will be of interest if you want to see musicians giving a delightful performance instead of just listening to them; but it's no substitute for a good audio recording. On the DVD: This is a non-anamorphic widescreen picture, not the 4:3 ratio claimed on the back cover. The sound is only PCM stereo, there are no extra features, and the disc only has the most basic of menus. Chapter access is restricted to just three points. If you wish to select a specific aria or chorus you have to refer to the inside of the booklet and work out which track you need to jump to. And would it be asking too much for the libretto, either on screen or in the booklet? Overall, a very disappointing DVD presentation of an otherwise enjoyable concert performance. --Mark Walker

• History Of Mr Polly / Great Expectations / Waterloo Road | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Three John Mills films on one fantastic box set. History Of Mr. Polly: John Mills stars in this celebrated adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic. Mr Polly is a sensitive soul idling away his days as a humble drapers assistant until one day he is abruptly sacked for daydreaming at work. His well-ordered life is plunged into chaos until his fathers death suddenly brings him a large inheritance. Mr Polly splashes out on a brand new bicycle and sets off to explore the world and seek out grand adventure. A doomed love affair quickly destroys his newfound dreams. The bicycle is stored away and Mr Polly opens up his own drapers shop in a dismal little town. Fifteen years later finds him unhappily married and almost bankrupt. His thoughts drift towards suicide - but there may yet be another avenue of escape for the hapless Mr Polly. Great Expectations: David Lean directed this stylish film presentation of Charles Dickens' heart warming story of a young man befriending an escaped convict who becomes his unknown benefactor and of the consequences for the young man as he establishes himself in the world. Waterloo Road: As World War Two rages Jim Colter (John Mills) finds himself called up to serve in the Army - but hes soon to find himself at war on two fronts. While hes away his lovely wife Tillie attracts (Joy Shelton) attracts the amorous attention of Ted Purvis (Stewart Granger) a vicious local spiv and self-acclaimed ladies man. When Jims sister write to him informing him of what is happening Jim decides that the Nazis can wait and that an even more insidious enemy needs to be dealt with first. He breaks out of camp goes AWOL and sets off to find his wife. With the military hot on his tail Jim must make his way through war-torn London to settle things once and for all.

• A Night With Handel | DVD | (25/10/1999) from £16.24   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.07%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Sultry sopranos and contraltos brood in candle-lit churches or at the top of a shopping mall escalator; a shaven-headed tough menaces enemies with a knife, singing of vengeance and death in a terrifying counter-tenor rasp; a couple sing of fulfilment in the back of a limousine. Jonathan Keates remarks in his accompanying lecture that the heroes and heroines of Handel's opera are real people, whose passions transcend the baroque libretti they are singing; by taking them out of full-bottomed wigs and panniered frocks and putting them at large in contemporary London at night, this interesting documentary reminds us of the immediacy of these arias. This would not work, of course, were not the performances exemplary in their own right and presented with a driving urgency that takes us away from the pieties of the oratorio tradition and reminds us what a superb and popular man of the theatre Handel was. --Roz KaveneyOn the DVD: The DVD comes with the narration in English, French and German, and subtitles in those languages. The arias are also playable as audio only. --Roz Kaveney

• Handel: Messiah | Blu Ray | (04/01/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Don Carlos - Verdi | DVD | (01/10/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Giuseppe Verdi: Don Carlos.