"Actor: Elaine Lordan"

• Gimme, Gimme, Gimme - The Complete Second Series | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £6.35   |  Saving you £13.64 (214.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Gimme Gimme Gimme Series 2 is quite simply the ongoing chaotic adventures of one over the top tart (Kathy Burke) and one perennially lonely gay guy (James Dreyfus) who happen to share both a flat in London and a yearning lust for whatever luckless man happens to cross their paths! This release includes all the episodes from Series 2 plus the Millennium Special. Episode titles: Teacher's Pet Stiff Prison Visitor Dirty Thirty Glad To Be Gay? Sofa Man. Also includes the fabulously funny millennium special!

• Gimme, Gimme, Gimme - The Complete First Series | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When Gimme Gimme Gimme first hit the television screen in 1998, it immediately divided the critics. Plenty loathed it, but it soon acquired cult comedy status in the BBC2 post-watershed tradition. Since then it has gone mainstream on BBC1 but as the first series shows, its appeal lies in a surreal anarchy. Linda (Kathy Burke, brilliant) and Tom (James Dreyfus, who went on to star with Bette Midler in her ill-fated sitcom) live in a world of self-delusion. They are the ultimate misfits; a grotesque ladette who thinks she is "gorgeous" and worships Liam Gallagher and a neurotic gay actor who can't land a decent part for toffee but cherishes a secret passion for Simon Shephard, the smooth star of popular television dramas such as Peak Practice. They trade non-PC insults like most people make small talk (Linda: "There's no such thing as gay. It's just laziness."), yet are totally reliant on each other. It's vulgar, coarse, often outrageous and certainly not for the faint-hearted. But in most parts it is extremely funny. And if the self-regarding cuteness of so many US comedy imports turns your stomach, you'll love it. This is Will and Grace, on cocaine, in a parallel universe. On the DVD: presented in standard 14:9 format with stereo soundtrack, this disk simply gives you the first series of Gimme Gimme Gimme exactly as it appeared on television. So the picture and sound quality are fine. Just select your favourite episode from the index and laugh away. The lack of extras is disappointing. There must be some great outtakes, which would have added a bit of value; so would biographies of the stars and writer Jonathan Harvey, who has become one of the UK's best young playwrights. --Piers Ford

• Gimme, Gimme, Gimme - The Complete Third Series | DVD | (11/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Gimme, Gimme, Gimme took situation comedy to new peaks of vulgarity when it returned for a third and final series in 2001, thanks to the full-on performances of James Dreyfus (Tom) and Kathy Burke (Linda) who suck up Jonathan Harvey's innuendo-laden scripts and spit them out like a couple of thespian tornados. "I don't think anything could relax my lips, baby," leers Burke, milking the endless supply of double entendres. "Mind you, after a couple of vodkas they're usually flapping around like flip-flops." Tom's descent into self-parody--when he looks in the mirror, he sees the new Noel Coward--can have only one logical conclusion: the offer of a bit-part in Crossroads which eventually splits up this dysfunctional friendship. Sex-crazed Linda is deluded beyond all reason--when she looks in the mirror, she sees Catherine Zeta Jones--and here we finally get some insight into the reasons behind her grotesque traits: visits from her old Borstal wing governor (the excellent Ann Mitchell, sending up her Widows character), and the long-lost son she gave up for adoption. Like all successful comedy, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme has its dark side. It also becomes increasingly surreal as the episodes pass: Tom fails miserably in a walk-on role in a conceptual Japanese drama presented in a fire station; and Linda turns the back garden into a campsite. Sophisticated it isn't, but it's often wickedly hilarious and occasionally brilliant. On the DVD: Gimme, Gimme, Gimme is presented in standard 14:9 format with a stereo soundtrack, replicating the sitcom viewing experience. Apart from the episode index, there are no extras. At the very least biographies of Harvey, Burke and Dreyfus would have been useful. --Piers Ford

• Gimme, Gimme, Gimme - The Complete Collection | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £24.95   |  Saving you £10.04 (40.24%)   |  RRP £34.99

  More comedy madness!....The complete collection contains all three side-splitting series and over 9 hours of thoroughly outrageous comedy. Delivering laughter from beginning to end 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' follows the riotous lives of flat mates Linda (Kathy Burke) and Tom (James Dreyfus) in their equally hopeless search for a man. SERIES ONE 01. Who's That Boy 02. The Big Break 03. Legs & Co 04. Do They Take Sugar? 05. Saturday Night Diva 06. I Do I Do I Do SERIES TWO The Millennium Special 01. Teachers Pet 02. Stiff 03. Prison Visitor 04. Dirty Thirty 05. Glad To Be Gay 06. Sofa Man SERIES THREE 01. Down & Out 02. Lollipop Man 03. Secrets & Flies 04. Trauma 05. Singing In The Drain 06. Decoy

• Eastenders: The Slaters in Detention | DVD | (10/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  With brand new material never to be broadcast on TV the UK's favourite soap opera comes to DVD! Follow the trials and tribulations of the most volatile family in British soap - the Slaters. Locked up in a cell following an altercation outside School Disco the girls look back on some of the most explosive dramatic and tear-jerking events since they moved to Albert Square. All the drama and emotion we have come to expect together with more than a little humour makes 'Slaters In Detention' an ideal Christmas present for all the soap's fans.