"Actor: Barbara Durkin"

• Vincent - Series 1 And 2 | DVD | (13/11/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The daddy of all private investigators. Featuring all the episodes from series 1 & 2 Vincent stars Ray Winstone as the eponymous private investigator; a headstrong passionate man whose methods often bring him into conflict with the authorities.

• Brass Eye | DVD | (06/05/2002) from £9.17   |  Saving you £10.82 (117.99%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Chris Morris' Brass Eye is a brilliantly funny spoof on current affairs media that carries on where his previous The Day Today left off. The show ran for one single, contentious series in 1997, to be followed by an even more controversial one-off in 2001. While these episodes might cause offence to those not versed in Morris' satirical methods, and while one occasionally suspects his work is informed by a dark seam of malice and loathing rather than a desire to educate, Brass Eye remains vital satire, magnificently hilarious and, in its own way, fiercely moral viewing. Brass Eye satirises a media far too interested in generating dramatic heat and urgency for its own sake than in shedding light on serious issues. Morris mimics perfectly the house style of programmes such as Newsnight and Crimewatch, with their spurious props and love of gimmickry. Meanwhile his presenter--an uncanny composite of Jeremy Paxman, Michael Buerk and Richard Madeley among others--delivers absurd items about man-fighting weasels in the East End and Lear-esque lines such as "the twisted brain wrong of a one-off man mental" with preposterously solemn authority. Much as the media itself is wont to do, each programme works itself up into a ridiculous fever of moral panic. Most telling is the "drugs" episode, in which, as ever, real-life celebrities, including Jimmy Greaves and Sir Bernard Ingham, are persuaded to lend their name to a campaign against a new drug from Eastern Europe entitled Cake. The satirist's aim here isn't to trivialise concern about drugs but to point up the media's lack of attention to content. A response to the ill-conceived News of the World witch-hunt, in the wake of the Sarah Payne affair, the 2001 "paedophilia" special was the most supremely controversial of the series. It followed the usual formula--duping celebs such as Phil Collins into endorsing a campaign entitled "Nonce Sense", urging parents to send their children to football stadiums for the night for their own safety and mooting the possibility of "roboplegic" paedophiles--and prompted the sort of hysterical and predictable Pavlovian response from the media that Brass Eye lampoons so tellingly. On the DVD: Brass Eye on DVD includes brief outtakes, such as "David Jatt" interviewing celebrities about breeding hippos for domestic purposes, an hilarious exchange with Jeffrey Archer's PA ("He's a very wicked little man") as well as trailers for the paedophilia special.--David Stubbs

• My Parents Are Aliens - Best Of | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-9.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Terrific fun for all the family with My Parents are Aliens featuring 6 amazing episodes! Simply out of this world entertainment!

• Wish You Were Here | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Set in Brighton in 1951, Wish You Were Here contrasts an England of post-war conformity with the free-spirited nature of a girl, Lynda, on the verge of womanhood, played by the then 17-year-old Emily Lloyd, giving one of the great screen debuts. Filled with youthful energy, good-natured yet delighting in shocking the prudish world around her, Lynda is innocently flirtatious and eager to discover sex. She can't quite understand why everyone disapproves so much, and the film expertly balances uproarious comedy with drama in what is essentially a complex character study. The second, darker half has shades of Lolita, with the excellent Tom Bell in the older man role, while Lynda herself in some ways anticipates Laura Dern's Rambling Rose (1991). Director David Leland also wrote the Brighton thriller, Mona Lisa (1986), and Personal Services (1987) based on the true story of the madam, Cynthia Payne. It is on Payne's own early memories, as told to Leland, that the fictional Wish You Were Here is partly based, while Leland went on to further explore female sexual awakening in The Land Girls (1997), again exploring female sexual awakening --Gary S. Dalkin

• Midsomer Murders - Painted In Blood | DVD | (13/06/2005) from £4.90   |  Saving you £12.09 (246.73%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Nothing is as it seems behind the well-trimmed hedges of the picturesque cottages in the idyllic English county of Midsomer. Beneath the tranquil surface of sleepy village life exist dark secrets. Joyce Barnaby has enrolled in an art class that takes her to the village green in Midsomer Florey. The village is also under surveillance by Barnaby and Troy who are busy with 'Operation Pondlife' an initiative designed to combat street crime. When Joyce finds the body of one of her fellow

• I'm Alan Partridge--The Complete Series | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £8.04   |  Saving you £11.95 (148.63%)   |  RRP £19.99

  I'm Alan Partridge finds Steve Coogan's media creation back in his native Norwich, having lost his beloved chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You, and now reduced to the pre-Breakfast slot playing old T'Pau and Soft Cell singles to an audience of farmers and all-night bakery workers. He's also lodged at the Linton Travel tavern, whose permanently smiling manageress, bland decor and themed buffets are redolent of what vast tracts of England have become. He's very much at home there. While there's much media satire in Partridge's pitiful pitches of programme ideas to the BBC ("Inner city sumo? Monkey tennis?"), I'm Alan Partridge is more a bleakly hilarious take on Modern Middle English Man, irascible and profoundly bored. Between innumerable moments of high, wild comedy, such as a disastrous video Partridge does for a boating agency and an encounter with his one (insane) fan, the most telling moments of the series come with his efforts to fill his dismally empty days, taking a trouser press to pieces, staring at the astro turf at an owl sanctuary or walking to a service station to buy windscreen cleaning fluid just for something to do. All this proved a little too darkly uncomfortable for mainstream audiences--yet Alan Partridge was probably the finest British comic creation of the 1990s. --David Stubbs

• Roger Roger - Complete Series 1 And 2 | DVD | (10/04/2006) from £20.00   |  Saving you £9.99 (49.95%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Available for the first time on DVD John Sullivan's comedy series set in and around the office of Cresta Cabs is a welcome sight indeed. Stressed-out and drained by his ever-weird workforce Sam (Robert Daws) desperately tries to keep his employees in line whilst promoting - in his opinion - the good name of the company. However the business would have sunk along time ago if it wasn't for the efforts of Sam's right-hand woman Reen (Pippa Guard). Mind you even Pippa's going to have trouble with this motley rabble! Episodes Comprise: 1. Even Quasimodo Pulled 2. I Used To Be A Superb Rugby Player 3. Socks With Little Tennis Players On Them 4. There Are No Minicabs In Heaven 5. Some Get The Magic Some Get The Tragic 6. The Day The Music Died 7. Welcome To Responsibilityville 8. Every Victim Wishes He'd Kept His Clothes On 9. Sometimes It's Hard To Be A Man 10. Ask The 1975 Millwall Defence 11. I'm Not A Little Baby And Daddy Hasn't Gone To Japan 12. Too Much Wine Too Many Stars 13. Love Rules The Heart Money Takes The Soul