"Actor: Eric Idle"

• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life | DVD | (04/09/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Returning to the sketch-show format of their earlier days, Monty Python' s The Meaning of Life was always going to feel less ambitious and less coherent than their cinematic masterpiece, The Life of Brian. And inevitably given the format, some sketches are better than others. But, for a movie that has been much-maligned, The Meaning of Life actually features some of the Pythons' most memorable set-pieces: the exploding Mr Creosote has to be the most wonderfully grotesque creation of a team whose speciality was the grotesque; while the sublime "Sperm Song" mixes satire and lavish visual humour in a musical skit of breathtaking audacity. Elsewhere, Eric Idle produces another musical gem with "The Universe Song" ("Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space / 'Cause there's bugger all down here on earth!"), while the Grim Reaper's appearance at an achingly tedious dinner party is the Pythons doing what they do best: mocking their own middle-class origins. Best of all, perhaps, is Terry Gilliam's modest introductory feature, "The Crimson Permanent Assurance", a 20-minute epic tale of the little men rebelling against the corporate system, a theme and a visual style that foreshadows his own masterwork, Brazil. Admittedly too many sketches sacrifice subtlety for shock tactics (the organ donation scene in particular requires a strong stomach), but when this film works it's nothing less than vintage Python. --Mark Walker

• The Best of Monty Python's Flying Circus/Live at Aspen | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  In just four series the ground-breaking anarchic surreal and hilarious Monty Python's Flying Circus - featuring Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones and Michael Palin - changed the face of comedy. Over 30 years later their skits animation and sketches seem as fresh as ever. This compilation of the best moments from the series includes such classics as 'Dead Parrot Sketch' 'Ministry Of Silly Walks' 'Spanish Inquisition' 'Upper Class Twit of the Year' and 'Lumberjack Song'.Live At Aspen filmed in 1998 finds the team discussing the show and performing their favourite sketches. It was the first time in 18 years that all the Python members had appeared on stage together (the late Graham Chapman making his appearance in an urn).

• The Transformers: The Movie 35th Anniversary Limited Edition Steelbook | Blu Ray | (03/08/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Animated Adventures Collection - Laura's Star/The Magic Sword/Dr Seuss/Powerpuff Girls - The Movie | DVD | (21/09/2009) from £6.57   |  Saving you £1.42 (21.61%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Laura's Star (2004): Did you ever believe that somewhere there's a special friend just for you? That what Laura finds the day she moves with her family to the city. She misses her old friends and her old house - until she rescues a fallen star the perfect size for cuddling. The star is homesick too. And as Laura and the star share a series of enchanted adventures (stardust makes toys come to life!) she finds that friendship can turn her strange new surroundings into a wonderful new place. A place called home. Beloved by children acclaimed by critics and based on the popular book series this resplendent movie glows with charm and storybook-like animation. Sprinkle a little stardust in the life of your little one. The Magic Sword (1998): Stunning animation and sensational songs await you in the enchanted land of Camelot. A spirited teenage girl names Kayley answers the call to adventure when Ruber the evil knight steals King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur. Aided by Garrett a handsome blind squire Kayley embarks on a thrilling quest to recover the sword and save her beloved kingdom. Along the way these two unlikely heroes meet up with one outrageously funny creature a wise-cracking two-headed dragon named Devon and Cornwell. On their magical musical journey Kayley and Garrett discover the unlimited power of friendship and courage. You'll discover dazzling fun-filled entertainment in Quest for Camelot. Powerpuff Girls - The Movie (2002): This full-length adventure features an animated epic so big so funny and so spectacular that only the Powerpuff Girls can handle it! Created by a perfectly powerful experiment Blossom Bubbles and Buttercup explode into action as the new kids in Townsville! But after one enthusiastic game of tag they nearly destroy their beloved city. Now called social freaks they turn to the mysterious Mojo Jojo for help but this sinister simian has other plans big plans like leading an army of evil monkeys to destroy the world! Join the celebration as the Powerpuff Girls save Townsville and the world - for the very first time ... before bedtime!

• Monty Python's Personal Best Collection | DVD | (13/11/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  The best-loved Monty Python sketches chosen by the surviving Pythons themselves!

• Dudley Do Right | DVD | (01/06/2009) from £4.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (100.60%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Dudley Do-Right follows the hilarious exploits of the dedicated but hapless young Mountie (Brendan Fraser) as he struggles to outwit the evil Snidely Whiplash (Alfred Molina). Snidely has devised the scam of the century setting off the biggest gold rush since the Klondike. Prospector Kim J. Darling (Eric Idle) is an unsuspecting oaf who joins the millionaire wannabes streaming into the town that has since been named Whiplash City. It's up to the usually sweet and naive Dudley to lead the charge defeat the villain win the heart of Nell Fenwick (Sarah Jessica Parker) and bring peace back to Semi-Happy Valley. Hopefully he won't screw it up.

• Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Best Of Monty Python's Flying Circus - Vol. 1 | DVD | (04/10/1999) from £8.00   |  Saving you £11.99 (149.88%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The coming together of the influential Python team is regarded as a milestone for modern absurdist comedy, though each of the six members had been doing similar sketch work prior to this first 1969 series, of whose highlights this video consists. The most revolutionary aspect of Python was its eschewal of punch lines, preferring as they did bizarre, surreal links and quantum leaps into the imagination of animator Terry Gilliam. Inevitably, Python has dated. Sketches such as "The Upper Class Twit of the Year" and the "Wink-wink, nudge nudge" man are worn down by familiarity. There's some clunky stereotyping and "Oo, ducky"-style gay references. That said, much of this still stands up. "Hells Grannies" and the race to find the world's funniest joke are fine, the Eric Idle-driven documentary spoofs are witty while the Batley Townswomen's Guild's re-enactment of Pearl Harbour is intelligently ridiculous. John Cleese, however, stands literally and metaphorically head and shoulders above the rest. His and Chapman's sketches, involving a mountaineering expedition leader with double vision and an arts TV interviewer who can't get past the etiquette of how to refer to his guest ("Eddie baby...") are pursued to their absurd non-conclusions with the remorseless logic of a top-drawer barrister. --David Stubbs

• The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen | DVD | (07/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  From Terry Gilliam director of Time Bandits and Brazil comes The Adventures of Baron Munchausen a spectacular epic fantasy quite unlike any other film ever made. Just who is Baron Munchausen? Liar? Rogue? Madman? Or the greatest superhero ever to battle and triumph against unbeatable odds? Did he really ride through the air on a cannonball slay a three-headed griffin journey to the moon and all before breakfast...? Helped and hindered by a supporting cast of literally thousands including Vulcan (Oliver Reed) Bertholdt (Eric Idle) and many more the indomitable Baron (John Neville) succeeds in overcoming every obstacle to face his final greatest challenge... Death itself.

• MONTY PYTHON: DAS LEBEN DES BR | Blu Ray | (22/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Babe / The Borrowers / Casper | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Babe (Dir. Chris Noonan 1995): Introducing a barnyard full of captivating characters unlike any you've ever met! There's Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell); Fly the sheep dog; Rex her shepherding partner; Ferdinanad the quacky duck; Maa the elderly ewe; and the newest addition to Hoggett Farm Babe a most unusual Yorkshire piglet. It's a delightful story the whole family will love! The Borrowers (Dir. Peter Hewit 1998): Follows the adventures of the dauntless tiny Clock family parents Pod (Jim Broadbent) Homily (Celia Imrie) and their kids Peagreen and Arrietty - a family of tiny four inch tall people who live under the floorboards of a big house surviving by borrowing from the Human Bean family upstairs. The Borrowers turn dental floss into tightropes toaster handles into catapults socks into beds stamps into wall posters and when their world is facing extinction - in the form of Ocious P. Potter (John Goodman) their resourcefulness knows no bounds. Casper (Dir. Brad Silberling 1995): Ghost therapist Dr. James Harvey and his daughter Kat arrive at drafty old Whipstaff Manor. Its greedy owner Carrigan Crittendon has hired Dr. Harvey to exorcise the house's apparitions: a friendly but lonely young ghost named Casper who's just looking for a friend and his outrageous uncles Stretch Stinkie and Fatso. If the plan works she and Dibs her partner-in-slime can get their hands on the manor's fabled treasure. Meanwhile Casper has found a kindred spirit in Kat but The Ghostly Trio will not tolerate fleshies in their house. With hilarious antics and dazzling special effects Casper is a fun-packed adventure comedy for the whole family.

• Shrek Forever After 3D (Blu-ray 3D + Blu ray + DVD) | Blu Ray | (05/12/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £26.99

  It started with a loveable ogre... who befriended a talking donkey... and rescued a beautiful princess in the unforgettable story that broke the mould for all animated films to follow. Now comes Shrek Forever After, the hilarious and fitting finale to this record-breaking, Oscar-winning movie phenomenon.Longing for the days when he was a real ogre, Shrek signs a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to get his roar back... but turns his world upside down in the process. Donkey suddenly can't remember his best friend; Fiona is now a tough warrior princess; and Puss in Boots is one fat cat! Together, they have just 24 hours to reverse the contract and restore happily FOREVER after to close the final chapter.

• Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter (2-Disc Edition) | DVD | (06/12/2010) from £10.94   |  Saving you £14.05 (128.43%)   |  RRP £24.99

  It started with a loveable ogre... who befriended a talking donkey... and rescued a beautiful princess in the unforgettable story that broke the mould for all animated films to follow. Now comes Shrek Forever After the hilarious and fitting finale to this record-breaking Oscar-winning movie phenomenon. Longing for the days when he was a real ogre Shrek signs a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to get his roar back... but turns his world upside down in the process. Donkey suddenly can't remember his best friend; Fiona is now a tough warrior princess; and Puss in Boots is one fat cat! Together they have just 24 hours to reverse the contract and restore happily FOREVER after to close the final chapter.

• The Best of Monty Python's Flying Circus Volumes 1-3 / Live in Aspen | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Nudge-nudge wink-wink say no more... it's a 4 disc box set including a feast of Monty Python sketches such as The Dead Parrot Sketch The 127th Upperclass Twit of the Year Competition From Hurlingham Park Bicycle Repair Man Vicious Gangs of Old Ladies The Lumberjack Song The Man With Three Buttocks The Joke That Kills People The Bishop It's In The Mind Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition The Finals of the All-England Summarise Proust Competition The Fifteenth Ideal Loon Exhibition The Cheese Shop Sketch Stand and Deliver The Ministry of Silly Walks Whicker Island Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days... and many more!

• The Nutcracker And The Mouseking | DVD | (13/11/2006) from £5.04   |  Saving you £9.95 (197.42%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Based on the Fairytale By E.T.A. Hoffman Christmas in Czarist Russia 1900. A spoiled prince lives in a magnificent palace with his magician uncle Drosselmeier. To test the young prince Drosselmeier gives him one of two magic nuts. Each one has the power to make a wish come true. The prince carelessly plays with the nut as he muses that life would be much more fun if everyone was a toy. In a flash the prince and his servants are turned into toy nutcrackers. The evil mouse king that lives within the palace walls hatches a plot to take over the kingdom. Drosselmeier persuades Clara a young girl who is enchanted by the nutcracker prince to set off on a mission to save the kingdom. Will they be able to reverse the magic spell and save the kingdom from tyranny?

• The Secret Of Nimh 2 | DVD | (02/04/2001) from £5.96   |  Saving you £7.03 (54.10%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The straight-to-video sequel The Secret of NIMH 2 was a huge letdown after the grandeur of Don Bluth's 1982 adaptation of Robert C O'Brien's book, offering far poorer art and thinner characterisations. The story finds Timmy (voiced by Ralph Macchio), son of the Jonathan Brisby character from The Secret of NIMH, leaving the family farm and heading to Thorn Valley, where the rats of NIMH live. There, Timmy seeks a path in his father's footprints to become a hero, and meets a girl mouse who tells him her parents are among some NIMH mice wrongly presumed dead for years. A rescue ensues, of course, in which Timmy and the refugee rats risk getting caught themselves. At about an hour in length, genuine entertainment is at a premium in this production, making it even harder to ignore point-by-point comparisons between this film and its predecessor--especially when those comparisons, time and again, find the sequel wanting. The very best element here is the vocal and singing performance by Eric Idle as the villain, Martin, who resorts to electric shock to "improve" his intelligence and whose song, "Just Say Yes", is a real highlight. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Nuns On The Run / Time Bandits | DVD | (06/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Nuns On The Run (Dir. Jonathan Lynn 1990): Following in the great Carry On... tradition with a bit of Monty Python thrown in for good measure Nuns On The Run is a classic slice of slapstick comedy starring Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane. Brian and Charlie work for a gangster. When the boss learns they want to leave he sets them up to be killed after they help rob the local Triads of their drug dealing profits. Brian and Charlie decide to steal the money for themselves but when their escape doesn't go to plan they have to seek refuge in a nuns' teacher training school. Disguised as nuns Brian and Charlie have to avoid their boss Triads police and Brian's girlfriend. There's also the problem of them being men disguised as nuns in an all women institution. Time Bandits (Dir. Terry Gilliam 1981): All the dreams you've ever had.... and not just the good ones. The first of three Terry Gilliam films collectively referred to as his Trilogy of the Imagination (along with 'Brazil' and 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen') 'Time Bandits' is a wonderfully inventive fantasy with a massive cult following and universal appeal. A sleeper hit in 1981 the film grossed well over eight times its million budget. Co-written by Gilliam and fellow Monty Python veteran Michael Palin (who also appears in the film) 'Time Bandits' tells the story of Kevin (Craig Warnock) a young imaginative boy kidnapped by a band of mischievous dwarves who have stolen a map of the universe detailing the locations of holes in the space-time continuum from the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson). The dwarves with Kevin in tow set off on a bizarre journey back and forth though time with the intention of looting the fortunes of history's rich and famous. Along the way they meet the likes of King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) Robin Hood (John Cleese) and Napoleon (Ian Holm) among others and even get to sail on the Titanic moments prior to its unfortunate encounter with an iceberg. Unknowingly the diminutive bandits are being watched by the spectre of Evil Genius (David Warner) who wants the map for his own typically wicked purposes...

• Nuns On The Run | DVD | (04/01/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Following in the great Carry On... tradition with a bit of Monty Python thrown in for good measure Nuns On The Run is a classic slice of slapstick comedy starring Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane. Brian and Charlie work for a gangster. When the boss learns they want to leave he sets them up to be killed after they help rob the local Triads of their drug dealing profits. Brian and Charlie decide to steal the money for themselves but when their escape doesn't go to plan they have to seek refuge in a nuns' teacher training school. Disguised as nuns Brian and Charlie have to avoid their boss Triads police and Brian's girlfriend. There's also the problem of them being men disguised as nuns in an all women institution.

• The Best of Monty Python's Flying Circus | DVD | (05/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The Best of Monty Python's Flying Circus will probably be purchased mostly for the standards--those sketches that have become the staple material of every office joker and pub bore in Christendom--the Spanish Inquisition, the Australian philosophers, the Ministry of Silly Walks. Good fun though these are, once you've expunged the memory of a million witless impersonators, this collection is really worth owning for the material that never quite registered in the popular consciousness. Sketches such as the Summarise Proust Competition, the misunderstanding over the Hungarian phrasebook and John Cleese's manically embittered architect with a grudge against the Freemasons are every bit as funny as the more familiar hits and, free of any associated baggage, they will startle and delight the younger viewer as much as Python must have startled and delighted their parents when first broadcast in the 1970s. On the DVD: The Best of Monty Python's Flying Circus is a three-disc set, and each volume is equipped with a sketch selector that is fussier than strictly necessary. But this is more than compensated for by the wonderful Terry Gilliam animations that the viewer uses to navigate. Subtitles are available in English only. --Andrew Mueller

• More Ripping Yarns | DVD | (27/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Three more rollicking good tales starring Michael Palin in various guises. Written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones. 'The Testing Of Eric Olthwaite' 'Whinfrey's Last Case' and 'The Curse of The Claw'. The Testing of Eric Olthwaite: A Ripping Northern Yarn set in the dark days of the depression before Last of the Summer Wine started bringing jobs to the area. Eric's tough mining parents find their son so boring that they run away from home. Eric torn between love for his parents and lack of brain cells becomes involved with a hardened criminal. The rest is history. Whinfrey's Last Case: Dashing Gerald Whinfrey saves his country twice a week but in 1913 a German plot to start the First World War without telling anybody coincides with his holiday. Where do Whinfrey's priorities lie? Has he got any? A knockout tale of international intrigue. If only Dickens could write like this - Mrs Reg Dickens Eltham. The Curse of the Claw: Gothic terror comes to Maidenhead. A timely reminder of what happens when men dabble in the dark world of oriental superstition. Michael Palin aided by inexpensive plastic surgery plays old and young Kevin as well as Kevin's childhood hero Uncle Jack - an enormously cheerful physical disaster area who has every disease known to man usually at the same time.

• Splitting Heirs (Retro VHS Packaging) | Blu Ray | (19/10/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A