"Actor: David Nichol"

• Only Fools & Horses: Series 6 | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  You'll need no incentive to watch Series 6 of Only Fools and Horses beyond the knowledge that the very first episode of the six herein is the one in which Del takes that legendary pratfall when leaning against a non-existent bar counter. This is without doubt one of the greatest moments in British TV comedy. Other than that, what do we get? Well, this is the series in which Rodney first takes up with Cassandra. Gwyneth Strong's deftly underplayed, near-deadpan approach to the role of Rodney's soulmate is perhaps one of the most underrated elements in the show's entire run, even if the writers rather ran out of things to do with her almost at once. Ironically, then, despite her introduction, this isn't the strongest of Only Fools collections. Nevertheless, there are enough gems to remind you just why this show was such a success, among them the Spanish holiday episode in which Rodney has to pretend to be 14 and the propane-filled blow-up dolls episode, which really doesn't need a punchline. On the DVD: Only Fools and Horses, Series 6 two-disc set is presented in standard TV 4:3 ratio, with no special features--unless you count the injunctions on each disc's menu to insert the other disc if you want to watch the other episodes, "... you plonker!". --Roger Thomas

• Lord Of The Flies | DVD | (16/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In this classic 1963 adaptation of William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, a planeload of schoolboys are stranded on a tropical island. They've got food and water; all that's left is to govern themselves peacefully until they are rescued. "After all", says choir leader Jack, "We're English. We're the best in the world at everything!" Unfortunately, living peacefully is not as easy as it seems. Though Ralph is named chief, Jack and the choristers quickly form a clique of their own, using the ever-effective political promise of fun rather than responsibility to draw converts. Director Peter Brook draws some excellent performances out of his young cast: the moment when Ralph realises that even if he blows the conch for a meeting people might not come is an excruciating one. Well acted and faithfully executed, Lord of the Flies is as compelling today as when first released. --Ali Davis

• Doctor Who Christmas Special 2017 - Twice Upon A Time | 4K UHD | (24/09/2018) from £13.75   |  Saving you £1.24 (9.02%)   |  RRP £14.99

  This title includes 4K ULTRA HD + BLU-RAY For the first time, experience Doctor Who like never before upscaled to glorious 4K. Relive Peter Capaldi's final adventure as the famous Time Lord, as well as the introduction to Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor. Twice Upon A Time sees the Time Lord team up with his former self, the first ever Doctor (David Bradley) and a returning Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), for one last adventure. Two Doctors stranded in an Arctic snowscape, refusing to face regeneration. Enchanted glass people, stealing their victims from frozen time. And a World War One captain (Mark Gatiss) destined to die on the battlefield, but taken from the trenches to play his part in the Doctor's story. An uplifting new tale about the power of hope in humanity's darkest hours, Twice Upon A Time marks the end of an era. But as the Doctor must face his past to decide his future, his journey is only beginning EXTRAS: Doctor Who Extra: Twice Upon a Time The End of an Era Doctor Who Panel: San Diego Comic-Con 2017 Extras have not been upscaled to UHD

• Only Fools And Horses - To Hull And Back | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £6.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (128.76%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A feature length episode of John Sullivan's popular comedy first broadcast as a Christmas special in 1985. Del and Rodney travel to Amsterdam to collect some diamonds on behalf of Boycie and Abdul little knowing that old adversary Chief Inspector Slater is hot on their trail. To make matters worse Uncle Albert is navigating their course from Hull to Holland!

• Beethoven | DVD | (04/08/2008) from £6.87   |  Saving you £3.12 (45.41%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A St. Bernard puppy 'adopts' a new home after escaping from dog thieves. The Newton family just haven't realised the trouble that 185 pounds of dog can get into...

• Only Fools And Horses - Time On Our Hands | DVD | (09/02/2004) from £9.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (60.06%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The third episode in the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Trilogy by John Sullivan It seemed the usual Trotter farce: Raquel's parents visiting for dinner Rodney doing a stock take (artifical leg Showaddywaddy LPs)... Then Raquel's antique dealing father makes a discovery in the lock up. Before you can say ""this time next year Rodders ..."" our heroes are in Sotheby's about to realise their dreams and finally become - millionaires!!

• The Russia House | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £8.96   |  Saving you £4.03 (44.98%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Intelligent casting, strong performances and the persuasive chemistry between Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer prove the virtues in director Fred Schepisi's well-intended but problematic screen realization of this John Le Carré espionage thriller. At its best, The Russia House depicts the bittersweet nuances of the pivotal affair between a weary, alcoholic London publisher (Connery) and the mysterious Russian beauty (Pfeiffer) who sends him a fateful manuscript exposing the weaknesses beneath Soviet defence technology. Connery's Barley is a gritty, all-too-human figure who's palpably revived by his awakening feelings for Pfeiffer's wan, vulnerable Katya, whose own reciprocal emotions are equally convincing. Together, they weave a poignant romantic duet. The problems, meanwhile, emanate from the story line that brings these opposites together. Le Carré's novels are absorbing but typically internal odysseys that seldom offer the level of straightforward action or simple arcs of plot that the big screen thrives on. For The Russia House, written as glasnost eclipsed the cold war's overt rivalries, Le Carré means to measure how old adversaries must calibrate their battle to a more subtle, subdued match of wits. Barley himself becomes enmeshed in the mystery of the manuscript because British intelligence chooses to use him as cat's paw rather than become directly involved. Such subtlety may be a more realistic take on the spy games of the recent past but it makes for an often tedious, talky alternative to taut heroics that Connery codified in his most celebrated early espionage role. If the suspense thus suffers, we're still left with an affecting love story, as well as some convincing sniping between British and US intelligence operatives, beautifully cast with James Fox, Roy Scheider and John Mahoney. Veteran playwright Tom Stoppard brings considerable style to the dialogue, without solving the problem of giving us more than those verbal exchanges to sustain dramatic interest. --Sam Sutherland

• Sex, Chips And Rock 'n' Roll | DVD | (08/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Sex, Chips and Rock 'n' Roll spins a complex web of secret loves and twisted ambitions against the backdrop of the early British music scene. It's a rock n' roll soap opera, but it's smartly written and engagingly acted, full of subtle commentary on the cultural changes cutting across British society. Manchester in 1965 seems like a dead end to two sisters, flirty Arden (Emma Cooke) and bookish Ellie Brookes (Gillian Kearney). They ache to get out from under the thumb of their domineering grandmother (Sue Johnston), and when their cousin Norman (David Threlfall) proposes to Ellie, she accepts. But just then the sisters meet a struggling band called the Ice Cubes, who grudgingly play back-up for a smarmy singer named Larry B Cool (Phil Daniels) while trying to land a record deal. Arden throws herself at the group's leader, Dallas (Joseph McFadden), but Dallas finds himself drawn more to Ellie, who's also an aspiring songwriter. From there the multi-dimensional characters take unexpected turns, and you'll quickly find yourself drawn into their lives. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• The X Files: Season 2 | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £14.93   |  Saving you £20.06 (134.36%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Season Two, the 1994-95 run, of The X Files was the one where creator Chris Carter, having had a surprise hit when he expected a one-season wonder, started trying to make sense of all the storylines he had thrown into the pile in the first year. Moreover, he had to cope with Gillian Anderson's maternity leave by having Scully get abducted by aliens (back then, a pretty fresh device) for a few episodes and come back strangely altered. The season also inaugurated the tradition of opening ("Little Green Men") and closing ("Anasazi") with the show's worst episodes, both pot-boiling attempts to keep the alien infiltration/government conspiracy balls up in the air while seeming to offer narrative forward-thrusts or revelations. But it's also a show noticeably surer of itself than Season One, with its stars reading from the same page in terms of their characters' relationship and attitudes to the wondrous. Scully's no-longer-workable scepticism finally starts to erode in the face of Mulder's increasingly cracked belief. There are fewer marking-time leftover-monster-of-the-week shows--although we do get a human fluke ("The Host"), vampires ("3"), an invisible rapist ("Excelsius Dei") voodoo ("Fresh Bones")--and the flying-saucer stories at last seem to be going somewhere. The powerful two-episode run ("Duane Barry", "Ascension") features Steve Railsback as Mulder's possible future, an FBI agent burned out after a UFO abduction who has become a hostage-taking terrorist, which climaxes with Scully's disappearance into the light. The standout episode is also a stand-alone--"Humbug"--the first and still most successful of the show's self-parodies (written by Darin Morgan, who had played the Flukeman in "The Host"), in which the agents investigate a murder in a circus freakshow, allowing the actors to make fun of the mannerisms they have earnestly built up in a run of solemn, even somnolent, explorations of the murk. Other worthy efforts: "Aubrey", about genetic memory; "Irresistible", a rare (and creepy) straight psycho-chiller with little paranormal content; and "The Calusari", a good ghost/mystery. Rising deputy characters include Nicholas Lea as the perfidious Krycek and Brian Thompson as the shapeshifting alien bounty hunters. Notable guest stars: Charles Martin Smith, C.C.H. Pounder, Leland Orser, Terry O'Quinn, Bruce Weitz, Daniel Benzali, John Savage, Vincent Schiavelli, Tony Shalhoub. --Kim Newman

• Appointment With Death | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on the novel by Agatha Christie a posh 1937 tour of the holy land turns murderous when a malicious malevolent matriarch (Piper Laurie) is mysteriously poisoned. Each of her fellow tourists had the means and the motive to kill her and any of them would have enjoyed plunging the lethal hypodermic syringe into Mrs. Boynton's fleshy arm. It's up to nimble-witted Belgian detective Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to discover whodunit.

• The Long Riders | DVD | (11/06/2001) from £9.43   |  Saving you £3.56 (37.75%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This terrific Walter Hill Western follows the careers of the James and Younger brothers--and uses the nifty idea of casting actual clans of acting siblings in the roles. Thus, the James brothers are played by James and Stacy Keach; the Youngers by David, Keith, and Robert Carradine; the Millers by Randy and Dennis Quaid; and the Fords by Christopher and Nicholas Guest. Hill, working with an evocative Ry Cooder score, creates a film that is at once breathtakingly exciting and elegiac in its treatment of these post-Civil War outlaws. The Keaches in particular bring a surprising dignity to the roles of Frank and Jesse James, while David Carradine is a hoot as Cole Younger--and the Quaids mimic real life (as it was for them then) in their battles as the Miller brothers. Bloody, to be sure, but also bloody good. --Marshall Fine

• The X Files: Season 3 | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Focused lightning bolts, stigmata, possession, and ancient curses become secondary in Season 3 of The X-Files as more episodes are devoted to pursuing the increasingly complex story threads. "The Blessing Way" is an explosive start, introducing the Syndicate's well-manicured man (John Neville), while Scully's sister Melissa is shot and Mulder experiences Twin Peaks-like prophetic visions. We learn of medical records of millions, including Scully, who have been experimented upon ("Paper Clip"): the fast-paced train-bound two-parter "Nisei" and "731" suggests the experiments are about alien hybridisation. Krycek turns out to be hosting an alien in the next double-act, "Piper Maru" and "Apocrypha", in which Skinner is shot by Melissa's killer. Two great one-offs outside the arc are "Clyde Bruckman's "Final Repose", a bittersweet tale of foreseeing death (featuring an Emmy-winning performance from Peter Boyle) and Jose Chung's "From Outer Space", a spoof of alien conspiracy theories through an author's investigations into abductees. --Paul Tonks

• Only Fools And Horses - Modern Men | DVD | (09/02/2004) from £4.75   |  Saving you £11.24 (236.63%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Little Damien is growing up fast but little else has changed in Mandela Towers as Del Boy Rodders and Uncle Albert continue to lurch from one disaster to another. With the help of new man's manual Del is learning to give attention to Raquel - if only she'd stop talking while he's trying to read. Meanwhile Rodders 'accustomed to the security of an irregular wage' is applying for a new job. Can the Trotter business empire survive without him?

• The Choir | DVD | (20/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This mini-series based on Joanna Trollope's novel explores the internal politics and scandals of a British cathedral choir school. It features the singing voice of first-time actor and boy treble soloist Anthony Way a real-life student at the St. Paul's Cathedral Choral School in London.

• Only Fools And Horses - The Complete Series 4 | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £6.28   |  Saving you £13.71 (218.31%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Only Fools and Horses is perhaps the last great and universally popular British sitcom. Series 4 reached 1985; Grandad has sadly passed on, to be replaced at Nelson Mandela House by Uncle Albert (Buster Merryfield). Only Fools and Horses improved with age and the fourth series was still confined to the half-hour format, is good but not vintage (that occurred during Delboy's "Yuppy" years). Episodes such as "It's Only Rock'n'Roll", in which Rodney joins a band, show all the failings sitcoms usually expose when getting to grips with such alien subject matter: the situations have yet to involve the full complement of the entire Nag's Head ensemble and there are still occasional disturbing racial references. However, Uncle Albert's introduction does bring the series up a notch, as his furtive brandy-swilling, yarn-spinning and doddery bungling swiftly get on Delboy and Rodney's wick (though he's not without some cleverly introduced pathos), while episodes such as "Watching the Girls Go By" and "As One Door Closes" build effectively up to the sort of big, laugh-out-loud final twists that would become the series' trademark. On the DVD: full screen, no special features, sadly, except scene selection. --David Stubbs

• Only Fools And Horses - All The Best - Vol. 2 | DVD | (01/11/2004) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.94%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The second installment of classic episodes from series 1-7! Friday The 14th: The Trotters are off to Boycie's cottage for a spot of salmon poaching. Unfortunately for them so is an escaped axe murderer! Thicker Than Water: Del and Rodney's dad returns after 18 years. Rodney is keen to forgive and forget but Del isn't so sure... Hole In One: Rodney's investment in suntan oil during the worst British winter since the last Ice Age has left the Trotters clos

• Slap Shot | DVD | (03/10/2002) from £16.16   |  Saving you £-6.17 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Paul Newman and his Butch Cassidy director, George Roy Hill, made a very original comedy in this 1977 story of an over-the-hill player/coach (Newman) for a lousy hockey team who gets results when he teaches his players to get dirty. One of the most hilariously profane movies ever to come out of Hollywood, this is the kind of film that makes its own rules as it goes along. Newman is very good, and while Hill goes for the gusto in terms of capturing the violence of this world, his instinct for comedy has never been sharper. Great support from Strother Martin, Paul Dooley, and the rest. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Only Fools And Horses - The Complete Series 3 | DVD | (04/06/2001) from £10.78   |  Saving you £9.21 (85.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Regularly touted as one of the best British sitcoms ever, Only Fools and Horses kicked off in 1981 when mobile phones were the size of bricks and wine bars were the ultimate places to hang out. The formula was simple enough: Cockney wideboy Derek "Del Boy" Trotter (brilliantly played by David Jason) dreams of better things for himself while sharing a cramped council flat in the nicely named Peckham tower block Nelson Mandela House with his unworldly brother Rodney and his sweet but doddery old grandad. Trouble is, Del's endless money-making schemes (such as his attempt to flog a consignment of one-legged turkeys, or his plan to sell bottled tap water under the label "Peckham Spring") inevitably backfire, like the beat-up old Robin Reliant van he uses to cart around all this faulty gear in. Created by John Sullivan, who also sings the very catchy theme tune, Only Fools and Horses is a wonderful mix of dodgy but loveable characters (such as Del Boy's dimwit friend Trigger), knockabout slapstick (no-one falls down with as much comedic grace as Jason) and brilliantly crafted dialogue. Sadly, Leonard Pierce, who played Grandad, died in 1983 (his armchair in the Trotter household was filled in 1985 by Buster Merryfield as Uncle Albert, an old merchant seaman who used to bore Del and Rodney with tales of his war days). The show ran to seven series and ended with characteristic warmth in 1991, when Del Boy became a father; but the Trotters made occasional returns to the small screens with six hugely popular one-off Christmas specials. This, as Del Boy himself might say, is "lovely jubbly". --Edward Lawrenson

• Only Fools And Horses - All The Best - Vol. 1 | DVD | (01/11/2004) from £4.46   |  Saving you £12.79 (399.69%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The first installment of the best episodes from Series 1-7 featuring 'Big Brother' 'The Russians Are Coming' 'A Losing Streak' 'No Greater Love' and 'A Touch Of Glass'.

• Only Fools And Horses - If They Could See Us Now | DVD | (01/11/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  If They Could See Us Now, originally broadcast on Christmas Day 2001, is the first in a trilogy of Only Fools and Horses specials. This one sees Delboy Trotter and family living the high life in the South of France, having become millionaires following the sale of a rare and valuable watch that had been knocking about in the Trotters' garage. However, Del manages to lose the entire family fortune following a crash in Central American stocks. Now the Trotters, including Rodney, wife Cassandra and Del's young son Damien are back on "Hooky Street", in the old flat in Nelson Mandela House, broke and owing £50,000 to the taxman. Although this extended episode contains some funny business, particularly involving Rodney and Cassandra's efforts to reinvigorate their love life, it feels like a series extended too far beyond its natural life. Much of the fluency and chemistry between the ageing cast has evaporated in their lay-off. Writer John Sullivan's forte had been belly jokes which whooped up from nowhere in the plot, but here the humour is contrived and implausible. The business over the mix-up regarding Uncle Albert's funeral also strains credence, while the final scenario involving a TV quiz show is flatly predictable. Still, 20.3 million watched this show, a tribute to the enduring affection for the series. --David Stubbs