"Actor: Dandy Nichols"

• Till Death Us Do Part | DVD | (12/12/2016) from £54.19   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Highly popular and more than a little controversial Johnny Speight's classic sitcom satirised the less acceptable aspects of conservative working-class culture and the yawning generation gap, creating a sea change in television comedy that influenced just about every sitcom that followed. As relevant today as when first transmitted, Speight's liberal attitude to comedy shone a light on some of the more unsavoury aspects of the national character to great effect. Starring Warren Mitchell as highly opinionated, true-blue bigot Alf Garnett, Till Death Us Do Part sees him mouthing off on race, immigration, party politics and any other issues that take his fancy. His rantings meet fierce opposition in the form of his left-wing, Liverpudlian layabout son-in-law Mike, while liberal daughter Rita despairs and long-suffering wife Else occasionally wields a sharp put-down of her own. Though all colour episodes exist, many early black and white episodes were wiped decades ago. The recent recovery of the episode Intolerance, however, alongside off-air audio recordings made on original transmission allow us to present a near-complete run of the series from beginning to end.

• Till Death... | DVD | (28/01/2019) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Alf Garnett, Johnny Speight's legendary comic creation, both amused and scandalised viewers and critics through the sixties and seventies in the classic sitcom Till Death Us Do Part and everyone's favourite bigot enjoyed a new lease of life in this early-eighties ATV spin-off, also penned by Speight and reuniting many of the series' original cast. This time around, former docker Alf has relocated from Wapping to Eastbourne, where he and long-suffering spouse Else have decided to spend their retirement. Alf's mate and former neighbour Bert has gone to a better place, and his widow Min now lodges at the Garnetts' bungalow; daughter Rita pops by occasionally, too, with Alf's grandson. But why pick on Eastbourne? Well, says Alf, I could've gone to Southend, but it's too near the Silly Moo's sister...

• The Vikings | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Kirk Douglas produced the trendsetting barbarian epic The Vikings and took the showiest, most aggressive role: lusty Viking Prince Einar, the "only son in wedlock" of King Ragnar (a cackling, wild-eyed Ernest Borgnine). With jagged scars down his face and a milky-white blind eye that almost glows in his skull, Douglas has a rowdy time battling defiant slave Tony Curtis (the long-lost heir to the British throne) for the hand of the beautiful princess Janet Leigh. It's pure Hollywood hokum, sure, but spectacular hokum: the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff turns his Norway locations into a lush Valhalla on earth. Faced with an absurd story, journeyman director Richard Fleischer goes for the gusto in brawling Viking parties, furious sieges, and clanging broadsword battles. An enormous hit, the film spawned a huge wave of Viking movies, some perhaps smarter but none as much fun. --Sean Axmaker

• Till Death Us Do Part | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £37.32   |  Saving you £-21.33 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The first series in colour of Johnny Speight's 'Till Death Us Do Part' featuring Warren Mitchell as the iconic Alf Garnett. Episodes comprise: To Garnett A Grandson Pigeon Fancier Holiday In Bournemouth Dock Pilfering Up The Hammers Alf's Broken Leg.

• Till Death Us Do Part | DVD | (30/10/2006) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The world according to Alf Garnett - the most opinionated loud-mouthed and prejudiced bigot in all comedy creation! Londoner Alf chronicles the hilarious history of the put-upon Garnett family from the war with Hitler to another battle with the Germans - the 1966 World Cup Final!

• The Happy Family | DVD | (18/08/2014) from £7.29   |  Saving you £5.70 (78.19%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The blitz and post-War reconstruction reshaped the London landscape. This delightful Ealing-style comedy from Muriel Box tells the story of Mr & Mrs Lord, who refuse to move out of their corner shop on the South Bank, to make way for the building of the Festival Hall. When the Government decides to build the Festival of Britain exhibition site, everything appears to be going to plan. All except for the fact that the main road and the pedestrian subway into the site are blocked by the House of Lords, a corner shop owned by Henry Lord (Stanley Holloway) and his wife Lillian (Kathleen Harrison). When the Lords decline the compensation offered by government civil servant Mr Filch (Naughton Wayne) they barricade themselves in to avoid the demolition of their beloved home. And when they are joined by an ambitious BBC sports broadcaster the outside world gets to hear a running commentary of the hilarious events from inside the House of Lords . The Happy Family is an enchanting look at London life amidst the bomb sites and changing landscape of the 1950s.

• The Birthday Party | DVD | (02/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Harold Pinter's first full-length stage play, The Birthday Party, was 10 years old when William (The Exorcist) Friedkin directed it for the cinema in 1968. In some ways, it was already a period-piece by then, Pinter's use of a combination of silence and excruciatingly banal dialogue to generate precipitous dramatic tension having been absorbed by contemporary theatrical mythology long since. Are the sinister McCann and Goldberg real? Or do they exist only in Stan's head? At the end, we're none the wiser. But Friedkin's claustrophobic direction, with the tormented Stan as its focus, has taken us through a master study in understated horror. The handheld camera, so fashionable in modern television drama, has rarely been used to such hypnotic effect. As Stan, Robert Shaw is mesmerising in his descent to animal-like submission. Sydney Tafler's Goldberg and Patrick Magee 's McCann make a truly terrifying double act. Cult television fans will appreciate an early appearance by Helen Fraser (these days best known as a sadistic prison warder in Bad Girls) as the easily seduced neighbour. Now that Friedkin's film is itself over 30 years old, the scent of mothballs ought to be even more pronounced. Its decrepit seaside boarding house setting and the drabness of the peripheral players are redolent of the distinctly non-swinging side of the 1960s in which it was made. But more than anything, The Birthday Party is about unspecified terror and the sort of inner demons that lurk in all of us. On the DVD: Excellent sound quality helps to make this a compellingly theatrical experience: never has the noise of tearing newspaper been more menacing. And the picture quality retains the grainy authenticity of the original print. Special features include brief backgrounders on the history of the play and Friedkin's career, and a slide show of still s from key scenes. --Piers Ford

• Georgy Girl | DVD | (02/05/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Available for the first time on DVD! The wildest thing to hit the world since the mini-skirt! Lynn Redgrave stars as the homely girl who takes on the role of mother to her beautiful roommate's unwanted baby. With her father's employer trying to take her on as a mistress and her roommate's husband taking her on as an easy lover Redgrave's Georgy navigates the narrows between prostitution and purity as she tries to hang on to the baby she has grown to love...

• Till Death Us Do Part | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The world according to Alf Garnett - the most opinionated loud-mouthed and prejudiced bigot in all comedy creation! Londoner Alf chronicles the hilarious history of the put-upon Garnett family from the war with Hitler to another battle with the Germans - the 1966 World Cup Final!

• The Knack And How To Get It | DVD | (02/08/2004) from £17.95   |  Saving you £-1.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Cool and sophisticated Tolen has a monopoly on womanising - with a long line of conquests to prove it - while the naive and awkward Colin desperately wants a piece of it. But when Colin falls for an innocent country girl it's not long before the self assured Tolen moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and war or can Colin get the knack and beat Tolen at his own game?

• Adelphi Collection Volume 3: T | Blu Ray | (14/02/2011) from £7.29   |  Saving you £12.70 (174.21%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The third release of the BFI's pioneering Adelphi Collection is a double bill showcasing two early films by John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno Death on the Nile). The Crowded Day (1954) is an engaging bittersweet comedy-drama focusing on the intertwined lives of a group of shop girls working in a London department store in the 1950s with a wonderful cast including John Gregson Joan Rice Dora Bryan Thora Hird Prunella Scales Sid James and Dandy Nicholls; Song of Paris (1952) is a charming romantic comedy which sees an archetypal Englishman - suavely played by Dennis Price - return from a jaunt abroad to face a dastardly foreign Count in a duel for the hand of a beautiful mademoiselle.

• Home | DVD | (15/02/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious play, from Booker Prize-winning author, David Storey, follows the interaction of five patients over the course of a single afternoon in the garden of what we can fairly assume is an English mental hospital. A classic pairing of two of the world's greatest English-speaking actors.

• Tommy Cooper Collection | DVD | (29/09/2008) from £16.79   |  Saving you £33.20 (197.74%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Tommy Cooper's comedy was timeless a true original who was everyone's favourite clown. Wearing his trademark Fez he delighted millions with bungled magic tricks and hilarious sketeches.

• Mrs Thursday - The Complete Series 1 | DVD | (01/04/2013) from £20.69   |  Saving you £19.30 (93.28%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Kathleen Harrison, one of Britain's best-loved character actresses, stars in this ratings-topping comedy-drama devised by Dixon of Dock Green creator Ted Willis. Featuring scripts by the celebrated dramatist Jack Rosenthal, this set contains the complete first series. Cheerful charlady Alice Thursday worked tirelessly for tycoon George Dunrich until the day he died. Now, she learns that she's inherited control of her late employer's multi-million pound corporation - along with his Mayfair m...

• Ladies Who Do | DVD | (24/03/2008) from £24.48   |  Saving you £-11.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Whilst financier James Ryder (Harry H. Corbett) discusses a potential take-over deal he is unaware that Mrs. Cragg (Peggy Mount) is busy polishing the floor beneath his desk. After Ryder leaves Mrs Cragg retrieves an un-smoked cigar from the wastepaper bin wraps it in a crumpled telegram and takes it for her next cleaning client Colonel Whitforth (Robert Morley). The Colonel gladly accepts the cigar but is even more excited by the contents of the telegram which allow him and Mrs Cragg to make a cool ''5 000 on the stock market! But when the city financiers decide to redevelop the cleaners' houses they soon find out that the ladies who do will not be moved!

• Till Death Do Us Part - 1974 Series | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This release features the complete 1974 series of Johnny Speight's Till Death Us Do Part from 1972 featuring Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett. Episode titles: TV Licence The Royal Wedding Strikes And Blackouts Party Night Three Day Week Gran's Watch 'Paki-Paddy'.

• Confessions - Confessions Of A Window Cleaner/Confessions Of A Driving Instructor/Confessions From A Holiday Camp/Confessions Of A Pop Performer | DVD | (20/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  The 'Confessions' series of films are still entertaining examples of 70s British high camp and go to places the 'Carry On' films never dared! Confessions Of A Window Cleaner (1974): The classic bawdy British sex comedy about a window cleaner who doesn't quite clean up his act... Confessions Of A Driving Instructor (1973): Our randy young hero Timmy Lea progresses from the 'ins and outs' of window cleaning to the joys of 'gear shifting' as he sets himself up as a driving instructor. Guaranteed 0 to 60 in 5 seconds...blonde or brunette! Confessions From A Holiday Camp (1977): Timmy and Sid are entertainment officers at a holiday camp. They must organise a beauty contest successfully or find themselves out of work! Confessions Of A Pop Performer (1975): Hilarious antics a-plenty when Tommy and Sid take on a second-rate pop group and end up on a Royal Charity Show!

• Early Bird, The / Press For Time | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Norman Wisdom reprises his best-loved character, the comically inept Pitkin, in 1965's The Early Bird, ably supported once again by Edward Chapman in his final appearance as Mr Grimsdale. This time around Wisdom is the only milkman working for Grimsdale's Dairy, a small business threatened by a menacing large corporation in the shape of Consolidated Dairies and their electric milk floats. Grimsdale and Pitkin must evoke the Dunkirk spirit to save their family firm from the grasp of the faceless giant. Of course, the wafer-thin plot is the merest excuse for a series of calamitous set pieces in which Wisdom wreaks havoc in his trademark bumbling manner. The best bits involve a disastrous game of golf, the usual shenanigans with a fire hose and a virtuoso tour de force opening sequence as the household struggles to wake up in the morning, all set to Ron Goodwin's tongue-in-cheek music score. --Mark Walker In Press for Time Norman Wisdom offered his version of the crusading reporter movie, though by 1966 time was running out for Norman's style of big-screen comedy. Perhaps a sign of his growing frustration with the formulaic nature of his pictures was that he stretched himself to play not just his usual underdog hero, but also his own mother and his grandfather, the Prime Minister. Wisdom also cowrote the movie in which, as a reporter in a small seaside town, he causes chaos for the council, organises a beauty parade and dresses as a suffragette. Though now nearing the end of his years as a movie star, Wisdom shows himself to still be as polished as ever at his own brand of good-natured slapstick. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Early Bird | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £16.24   |  Saving you £-3.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Norman Wisdom reprises his best-loved character, the comically inept Pitkin, in 1965's The Early Bird, ably supported once again by Edward Chapman in his final appearance as Mr Grimsdale. This time around Wisdom is the only milkman working for Grimsdale's Dairy, a small business threatened by a menacing large corporation in the shape of Consolidated Dairies and their electric milk floats. Grimsdale and Pitkin must evoke the Dunkirk spirit to save their family firm from the grasp of the faceless giant. Of course, the wafer-thin plot is the merest excuse for a series of calamitous set pieces in which Wisdom wreaks havoc in his trademark bumbling manner. The best bits involve a disastrous game of golf, the usual shenanigans with a fire hose and a virtuoso tour de force opening sequence as the household struggles to wake up in the morning. Wisdom's own brand of Jerry Lewis-inspired clowning, with mugging and pratfalls aplenty, is all good clean fun with little or none of the smutty innuendo that characterised the contemporary Carry On series. He carries this film, as he does all his others, solely on the strength of his winningly naïve charm: this is innocent comedy from the days before supermarkets really did wreck all the local businesses, not to mention from the days before The Godfather gave a whole new spin on the comedy value of going to bed with your horse. On the DVD: There are no extra features on this disc at all. Given Wisdom's household-name status and the longevity of these much-loved movies, this seems like a sadly missed opportunity. The 4:3 picture has not been digitally remastered and shows its age, as does the muddy mono soundtrack. Only Ron Goodwin's wonderfully tongue-in-cheek music score comes across reasonably well. --Mark Walker

• Cooper | DVD | (29/09/2008) from £10.78   |  Saving you £4.21 (28.10%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Tommy Cooper's comedy was timeless a true original who was everyone's favourite clown. Wearing his trademark Fez he delighted millions with bungled magic tricks and hilarious sketeches.