"Actor: Art Campion"

• Domina: Season 1 | DVD | (21/02/2022) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Rome is plunged into Civil War. Livia Drusilla, the golden girl of the prominent Claudii family, loses everything and is forced into exile. 10 years later she returns, determined to regain everything that was stolen from her. Which she does, brilliantly, by marrying the man who stole it. Domina follows Livia's journey from a naïve young girl to Rome's most powerful and influential Empress, driven by a deep desire to avenge her father and secure power for her sons. This is a visceral and authentic family saga, grounded in historical accuracy, bringing to life the incredible true stories of the women who would create one of the most enduring and fascinating dynasties of all time.

• Carry On Sergeant | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The first of the Carry On movies, 1958's Sergeant is rather different from its successors, much more a film of its time (the latter days of National Service) and rather less a bawdy picture postcard. Sergeant Grimshaw (William Hartnell long before Doctor Who) is about to retire and hopes that he can get his last platoon into shape as Champion Platoon of its intake. Unfortunately, the new recruits include the clumsy Golightly (Charles Hawtrey), the barrack-room lawyer Bailey (Kenneth Williams) and the hypochondriac Horace Strong (Kenneth Connor). Love interest is provided by Bob Monkhouse and Shirley Eaton--newlyweds separated by the call-up and reunited by her taking a job in the canteen--and by the pursuit of Horace by Dora Bryan's Nora. The film relies heavily on a mixture of slapstick and paradoxical revelations of character complexity--the obnoxious Bailey nonetheless takes the trouble to coach the incorrigibly dense Herbert (Norman Rossington); the series' later obsession with low comedy only really emerges in the scenes between Horace and the medic Captain Clark (Hattie Jacques). The platoon's eventual coming together as other than total incompetents is predictable, but likable.On the DVD: The DVD has no frills whatever except for a widescreen picture and chapter selections; it has been cleaned up however so that we get a remarkably crisp mono picture and mono sound, which brings out the quality of the military-band score by Bruce Montgomery, who was also the writer Edmund Crispin. --Roz Kaveney