"Actor: Elaine May"

• Cats - Ultimate Edition | DVD | (06/05/2002) from £6.47   |  Saving you £13.52 (208.96%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A performance of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical 'Cats' filmed live at the Aldelphi Theatre.

• Andrew Lloyd Webber - Broadway Favourites Collection | DVD | (21/02/2005) from £6.50   |  Saving you £28.49 (438.31%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The curtain is up for this fabulous collectable DVD box set which showcases Andrew Lloyd Webbers most successful Broadway musicals. Includes: Cats Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

• A New Leaf (1971) | Blu Ray | (07/12/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  One of America’s greatest comic legends, Elaine May, made her debut as writer and director in the wonderful A New Leaf. Unanimously acclaimed from the start, but unavailable for many years, it now stands as a classic alongside Harold and Maude, Bananas and M*A*S*H* as a key film in the new direction of American screen comedy in the 1970s. The great Walter Matthau stars as Henry, a once-rich playboy who has obliviously spent his entire inheritance. Desperate to marry into further financial support, he meets Henrietta (Elaine May), a shy, awkward, though independently wealthy botany professor. What follows is a giddy tale of dubious legal advice, ruthless skullduggery and ferns. A most unorthodox romantic comedy, stuffed with deadpan hilarity and brilliant comic invention, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present its UK home video premiere in a new Dual-Format edition.

• Cats - Ultimate Edition | DVD | (13/10/2000) from £20.49   |  Saving you £-14.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Cats is a pop-cultural phenomenon that has been performed on stage for more than 50 million patrons in 26 countries for almost 18 years, resulting in more than two billion dollars in ticket sales. Now that Cats has finally made it to the small screen, attention must be paid not just by fans of this critic-proof show, but also by those entertainment mavens who have somehow avoided it until now. This video version has been restaged but, alas, not really reconceived for its new medium. Most of the cast--assembled from London, Amsterdam and New York productions--are competent. Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy, Jacob Brent as Mr Mistoffelees and Elaine Paige--the original London Grizabella, the Glamour Cat well past her prime--are a great deal more than that. Paige has toned down her theatrical belting of her big number, "Memory", and allowed the faded ruin of her character's soul to prevail in close-up. For all the covers of her signature song, Paige's version remains definitive. The video is, by definition, more intimate, which is not always a good thing: costumes are even more Halloweeny in garish close-up, the cats less cuddly without that all-important interaction, the stage's appropriately midnight lighting transmuted to a Las Vegas neon. And the chorus of cats in production numbers is even clunkier and more amorphous in two- and three-shots. The one complete newcomer to the cast is the 90-year-old icon among English actors, John Mills, a delight as Gus the Theatrical Cat. Sir John and his character show the youngsters how it's done in close-up, largely behind the eyes, abetted by a heart-tugging delivery of his one song. Yet virtually all of the songs are lip-synched, further robbing the video Cats of its onstage spontaneity. It's clearer than ever that Lloyd Webber's music is mostly twaddle, with the important exception of "Memory", which instantly and rightly became one of the genuine theatre standards not dependent on context, in the vein of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns". On the plus side, most of the characters and lyrics, from TS Eliot's 14-poem Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, are far better defined and understood from the video version. --Robert Windeler, Amazon.com

• California Suite | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  California Street is a classic Neil Simon comedy that takes place at the Beverly Hills Hotel during the weekend of the Academy Awards celebration. Herb Ross's film follows the misadventures of four groups of guests including a divorced couple battling over the custody of their daughter (Jane Fonda and Alan Alda) a husband who gets caught with a hooker in his room by his wife (Walter Matthau and Elaine May) a British actress nominated for an Oscar and her straying gay husband (Maggie Smith and Michael Caine) and two competing doctors and their wives forced to share a hotel room (Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor).

• Small Time Crooks | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Woody Allen's latest comedy follows the misadventures of a couple who plan a daring robbery in New York.

• California Suite | DVD | (14/01/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  California Street' is a classic Neil Simon comedy that takes place at the Beverly Hills Hotel during the weekend of the Academy Awards celebration. Herb Ross's film follows the misadventures of four groups of guests including a divorced couple battling over the custody of their daughter (Jane Fonda and Alan Alda) a husband who gets caught with a hooker in his room by his wife (Walter Matthau and Elaine May) a British actress nominated for an Oscar and her straying gay husband (Maggie Smith and Michael Caine) and two competing doctors and their wives forced to share a hotel room (Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor).