"Actor: Eddie Arnold"

• Pennies From Heaven | DVD | (31/05/2004) from £19.95   |  Saving you £10.04 (50.33%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Dennis Potter's astonishing six-part miniseries Pennies from Heaven remains one of the edgiest, most audacious things ever conceived for television. The story tells of one Arthur Parker (Bob Hoskins), a sheet-music salesman in 1930s England. Beaten down by economic hard times and the sexual indifference of his proper wife (Gemma Craven), Arthur cannot understand why his life can't be like the beautiful songs he loves. On a sales trip through the Forest of Dean, he meets a virginal rural woman (Cheryl Campbell) he suspects may be his ideal. Ruination follows. Punctuating virtually every scene is a vintage pop song--lip-synched and sometimes danced out by the characters. This startling innovation makes the contrast between Arthur's brutish life and his bourgeois dreams even more dramatic. Potter's dark vision digs into British stoicism, sexual repression, the class system and even the coming of fascism in Europe. But it is especially poignant on the subject of the divide between art and reality. Piers Haggard directs the long piece with deft transitions between songs and story. (It was shot partly on multi-camera video, partly on film.) The cast is fine, especially the extraordinary Cheryl Campbell, who imbues her character with keen intelligence and no small measure of perversity. Bob Hoskins triumphs in his star-making part, bringing a demonic energy to his small-time Cockney, nearly bursting his button-down vests with frustration and appetite. Pennies from Heaven was remade in 1981 for the big screen (with Steve Martin), in an interesting, Potter-scripted adaptation; it's one of the reasons the original has been unavailable on home video for so long. --Robert Horton

• The 355 UHD BR: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (08/04/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Animal Room | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Set in the near future the film focuses on Arnold Mosk (Neil Patrick Morris) a high school student caught abusing drugs. Consequently he's enrolled in a controversial isolation programme nicknamed 'The Animal Room'. The 'Room' is a no holds barred arena designed to hold the most troubled youth and Arnold's life soon comes under threat. He is terrorised by the 'Room's gang leader Doug Van Housen (Matthew Lillard) a reckless delinquent with little care for life or society. However when Arnold's childhhod friend Gary a popular school athlete tries to save him they all get caught up in a cycle of violence leading to a near-apocalyptic conclusion.

• Animal Factory (Special Edition) | DVD | (28/11/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A