"Actor: Jan Pearson"

• One Foot In The Grave: Complete Series 1-6 | DVD | (29/10/2012) from £19.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In Victor Meldrew, One Foot in the Grave brought us one of the greatest characters in the history of British situation comedy. David Renwick's multi-award winning creation spawned a catch phrase--"I don't believe it"--that vocalised the sentiments of the perennially disgruntled, the irritated or the plain bewildered. Victor is a superannuated security guard struggling to fill his premature retirement usefully, but he is frustrated at every turn. Coincidences, external forces and events and other people conspire against him. Somehow or other, he always gets the blame, leaving a trail of walking wounded in his wake, usually led by his long-suffering wife Margaret. This first series, originally transmitted in 1990, contains countless comic moments, many of them truly surreal. But Victor is never a one-dimensional target for our laughter. Indeed, as with the best comedy, we mock him at our peril. None of us get through life without our share of Meldrew moments. Thanks to Richard Wilson's performance--which rightly made him a major television star--he is a rounded human being who genuinely can't understand why he is constantly at odds with the world around him, despite his best efforts. And in Annette Crosbie as the increasingly enraged Margaret, he has the perfect screen partner. --Piers Ford

• Bye Bye Birdie (1963) | DVD | (03/09/2018) from £10.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Lots of laughs and great songs have made this alltime favourite based on the hit Broadway show one of the most memorable musicals of all time. When rock star and teenage heartthrob Conrad Birdie gets drafted, the nation's teenagers go haywire and Conrad's songwriter, Albert (Dick Van Dyke), faces unemployment. So Albert and his girlfriend (Janet Leigh) organize a nationwide contest in which one lucky girl wins a farewell kiss from Conrad on the Ed Sullivan Show. Kim McAfee (AnnMargret) turns out to be the lucky teenager and Conrad's whole entourage moves into her quiet, Midwestern home much to the chagrin of her everirritable father (Paul Lynde) and her jealous boyfriend (Bobby Rydell). The result is chaos and a series of hilarious romantic complications.

• The Straight Story | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  From director David Lynch comes a lyrical portrait of one man's real life journey across America's heartland.

• Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £5.25   |  Saving you £0.74 (14.10%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The generic title of Martha - Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence suggests a bland, by-the-numbers romantic comedy. Its dialogue certainly doesn't help--there's a lot of piffle about destiny and "having only one chance", etc.--but there are some surprising differences. The plot centres around Martha (Monica Potter), an American trying to start a new life in London. She meets three men (Tom Hollander, Rufus Sewell and Joseph Fiennes, who played the title role in Shakespeare in Love). These three are best friends and all three fall in love with her but the one she falls in love with feels like he's betraying the others to be with her. Despite the resulting confusion, she pursues him to the end--which makes it unlike most current romantic comedies where the woman is a hapless love object to be captured by the right guy. But more entertainingly, Martha - Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence pays particular attention to the ways men delude themselves because the two friends Martha doesn't care for are both convinced she's hankering for them, which allows for some fairly subtle skewering of the male ego. It's a flimsy movie but no more so than Notting Hill and Joseph Fiennes, in particular, has a relaxed, winning charm that marks him as a rising star. --Bret Fetzer

• The Complete One Foot In The Grave Boxset | DVD | (16/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £69.99

  Who would have thought retirement could be so chaotic? Certainly not querulous Victor Meldrew one of tree-lined suburbia's perennial complainers or his long suffering wife Margaret. When he's forced to take early retirement Victor suddenly has plenty of time on his hands to rage against the petty annoyances of life. But there's one thing to remember in the Meldrew household - whatever can go wrong always does and it usually spells disaster for Victor... The complete collection of the long running BBC1 sitcom One Foot In The Grave. For individual series episode listings please refer to the singular boxed sets.