"Actor: Peter Vaughan"

• Our Friends In The North | DVD | (27/09/2010) from £12.99   |  Saving you £17.00 (130.87%)   |  RRP £29.99

  An epic saga stretching from 1964 to 1995, Our Friends in the North follows the lives of four young people in North-East England. Nicky Hutchinson (Christopher Eccleston) is initially courting Mary Soulsby (Gina McKee) but the relationship cools when it takes second place to his campaigning for Harold Wilson's Labour Party. She weds Tory Tosker Cox instead, but their marriage is a miserable one, living in a rot-infested high rise block built following a dubious new housing scheme. Meanwhile, "Geordie" Peacock, finally tiring of his drunken, abusive father, headbutts him and hitches down to London, where he ends up working for a surrogate "family" led by Malcolm McDowell's flash Soho sex club baron. Over the years, the paths of these characters intertwine, diverge then cross again, albeit occasionally stretching the bounds of plausible coincidence. The drama takes place against the backdrop of local authority and police corruption in the 60s, the radical far-left militancy of the early 70s, Thatcher's election, the 1984 miner's strike and the subsequent "murder" of Northern communities. What's brilliant about Our Friends is its melding of the personal and the political, with the soap opera of family estrangement played out against a backdrop of social decline. Peter Vaughn, playing Nicky's Dad as a former Jarrow marcher stricken by Alzheimer's, is especially poignant. If you didn't see this the first time, do so now. On the DVD: Our Friends in the North has a bonus disc featuring a discussion with writer Peter Flannery and the producers and directors in which the making of the programme is revealed to have been as epic and protracted a saga as the drama itself. There are interviews also with stars Christopher Eccleston and Gina McKee. --David Stubbs

• The Tomorrow People - The Complete Series | DVD | (20/03/2006) from £27.98   |  Saving you £74.00 (284.72%)   |  RRP £99.99

  The Tomorrow People available as a complete series for the first time in this limited edition set. Featuring all the episodes from the original series running from 1973 to 1979. Episodes comprise: 1. The Slaves of Jedikiah Part One 2. The Slaves of Jedikiah Part Two 3. The Slaves of Jedikiah Part Three 4. The Slaves of Jedikiah Part Four 5. The Slaves of Jedikiah Part Five 6. The Medusa Strain Part One 7. The Medusa Strain Part Two 8. The Medusa Stra

• Our Mutual Friend | DVD | (20/08/2001) from £12.97   |  Saving you £12.02 (92.68%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Dickens was the master of Victorian social satire, ruthlessly exposing the cruelty and absurdity that supported the strictly hierarchical class-structure of the day. This superb production of Our Mutual Friend does full justice to his darkest, most complex novel, fleshing out the satirical bones of the plot with performances that eschew caricature in favour of psychological depth. Anna Friel's Bella is wonderfully complex, her innate goodness struggling with her love of money and desire for advancement. Paul McGann, as the lawyer Wrayburn, is also superb, wrestling with the implications of his feelings for Lizzie. And of course, this being Dickens and the BBC, there's a terrific supporting cast, including Timothy Spall as the melancholy articulator of skeletons, Mr Venus. As the fortunes of the characters rise and fall, the river Thames flows eternally on, the symbolic backbone of this remarkable story. At six hours, this version of Our Mutual Friend is a long production, but not a moment too long. A mystery, a love story, a critique of the pursuit of wealth and status, this is perhaps the best adaptation of Dickens ever to be committed to film. --Simon Leake, Amazon.com

• Longitude | DVD | (15/01/2007) from £7.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (62.58%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An epic adaptation of Dava Sobel's best-selling book starring Michael Gambon and Jeremy Irons. Longitude is the fascinating story of John Harrison (Gambon) who in the 18th century believed he could make a clock that would work on board a ship - and so solve the problem of finding longitude at sea. Harrison has to struggle against a bigoted establishment in order to win recognition for his achievements. This story is intertwined with that of Rupert Gould (Irons) the former naval officer who in the 1920s discovered Harrison's clocks and - at the cost of his health his reputation and his marriage began the mammoth task of restoring them.

• Straw Dogs | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  According to critic Pauline Kael Straw Dogs was "the first American film that is a fascist work of art". Sam Peckinpah's only film shot in Britain is adapted from a novel by Gordon M Williams called The Siege of Trencher's Farm which Peckinpah described as a "lousy book with one good action-adventure sequence". The setting is Cornwall, where mild-mannered US academic David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) has bought a house with his young English wife Amy (Susan George) in the village where she grew up. David is mocked by the locals (one of whom is Amy's ex-boyfriend) and treated with growing contempt by his frustrated wife, but when his house comes under violent siege he finds unexpected reserves of resourcefulness and aggression. The movie, Peckinpah noted, was much influenced by Robert Ardrey's macho-anthropological tract, The Territorial Imperative. Its take on Cornish village life is fairly bizarre--this is a Western in all but name--and many critics balked at the transposition of Peckinpah's trademark blood-and-guts to the supposed peace of the British countryside. A scene where Amy is raped caused particular outrage, not least since it's hinted she consents to it. Not for the first time in Peckinpah's movies there are disquieting elements of misogyny, and it doesn't help that the chemistry between Hoffman and George is non-existent. (Impossible to believe these two would ever have clicked, let alone married.) But taken as a vision of irrational violence irrupting into a civilised way of life Straw Dogs is powerful and unsettling, and the action sequences are executed with all Peckinpah's unfailing flair and venom. Oh, and that title? A quote from Chinese sage Lao-Tze, it seems, "The wise man is ruthless and treats the people as straw dogs." The film was long withheld from home viewing in Britain by nervous censors, but this release presents it complete and uncut. --Philip KempOn the DVD: Straw Dogs is as jam-packed a disc as is possible for a film made before the days of obligatory "making of" features. Both the sound and visuals have transferred well, and, like the script, have aged well. There's a bumbling original interview in the style of Harry Enfield's Mr. Cholmondley-Warner, along with stills and original trailers. The new material includes a feature on the history of the film's censorship and commentaries by Peckinpah's biographers musing over interesting fan-facts (though none of the speakers have any first-hand experience of the making of the film). However, Katy Haber's commentary, and interviews with Susan George and Dan Melnick, offer a much more in-depth and intimate portrayal of the man and the making of the film. --Nikki Disney

• The Tomorrow People: The Complete Series | DVD | (01/07/2024) from £52.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The French Lieutenant's Woman | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £9.95   |  Saving you £3.04 (30.55%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Writer Harold Pinter (Betrayal) and director Karel Reisz (Isadora) take an experimental spin with John Fowles's magnificent novel set in Victorian England, and come up with something puzzling. Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep play the forbidden lovers in Fowles's story, but in a parallel story line they also play contemporary actors performing those characters in a movie production and having an affair of their own during off-hours. Got that? Considering that Fowles himself presents alternative endings in his novel, something equally eccentric is called for here. But little is accomplished by this intertwining of a fictional past and present, and the opportunity to do justice to a great story is lost. On the plus side, Irons and Streep are instantly striking as a natural couple on screen, and their presence makes watching The French Lieutenant's Woman easy enough despite the larger problems. --Tom Keogh

• The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Series | DVD | (26/03/2018) from £32.92   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the best-selling anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian detective fi ction, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes features the world-famous consulting detective's fictional rivals in the fog-shrouded crime capital of London. Set in the three decades before the Great War, each story dealt with an individual and perplexing case (and a different detective). This top-flight, BAFTA-winning series attracted an incredible array of talent, including John Neville, Robert Stephens, Peter Vaughan, Roy Dotrice, Donald Pleasence, Ronald Hines, Peter Barkworth and Donald Sinden. This set contains the 13 high quality episodes that made up the complete first series

• Ghost Stories for Christmas (Expanded 6-Disc Collection Box Set) | DVD | (28/10/2013) from £34.99   |  Saving you £25.00 (71.45%)   |  RRP £59.99

  This newly re-packaged and expanded Ghost Stories for Christmas 6-DVD box set from the BFI includes a total of 20 spine-tingling adaptations of the stories of M R James plus three additional Ghost Stories for Christmas broadcast by the BBC between 1968 and 2010. Highlights include Jonathan Miller’s Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968) Lawrence Gordon Clark’s A Warning to the Curious (1972) and the Andrew Davies adaptation of Charles Dickens’ The Signalman (1976). These adaptations which have a subtlety and style all of their own have been a major influence on many contemporary British horror filmmakers and have come to be regarded as some of the most acclaimed and brilliant British TV titles of all time. Contents: Disc One: Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968); Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010) Disc Two: The Stalls of Barchester (1971); A Warning to the Curious (1972) Disc Three: Lost Hearts (1973); The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974); The Ash Tree (1975) Disc Four: The Signalman (1976); Stigma (1977); The Ice House (1978) Disc Five: A View from a Hill (2005); Number 13 (2006); Disc Six: Classic Ghost Stories (1986) – Robert Powell reads ‘The Mezzotint’ ‘The Ash Tree’ ‘Wailing Well’ ‘The Rose Garden’ and ‘Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad’ Extras Three episodes of Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee (2000): ‘The Stalls of Barchester’. ‘A Warning to the Curious’ and ‘Number 13’ Three episodes of Spine Chillers (1980): ‘The Mezzotint’ ‘A School Story’ and ‘The Diary of Mr Poynter’ Filmed introductions with director Lawrence Gordon Clarke Extensive booklet with essays biographies film notes and full credits

• Porridge | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher (Ronnie Barker). The new prison officer Beale makes Mackay (Fulton Mackay) look soft and what's more an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it. The breakout is set for the day of a morale-raising football match between a ""celebrity"" football team and the inmates of Slade. Everything is going to plan until Godber (Richard Beckinsale) is injured on th

• Symptoms (Flipside 032) (DVD + Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (25/04/2016) from £14.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (33.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A film by José Ramón Larraz The official British Palme d'Or entry at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, Symptoms is a sophisticated modern gothic horror film exploring the themes of sexual repression and psychosis. Larraz's dark and stylish film tells of a young woman (Lorna Heilbron) who is invited by her girlfriend (Angela Pleasence) to stay at her remote English country mansion. Events take a disturbing turn when a menacing groundkeeper (Peter Vaughan) interrupts their time together, and a woman's body is found in the mansion's lake. Other than a limited theatrical release and a late-night screening on British television in the early 80s, Larraz's film has slipped into obscurity, and the original negative was long thought lost, assuring it a place in the BFI's ˜Most Wanted' list. Following the rediscovery of the original negatives in 2014, the dark delights of Symptoms can finally be experienced again in this new restoration, undertaken by the Belgian Cinematek. Extras: Newly restored in 2k On Vampyres and other Symptoms (Celia Novis, 2011, 74 mins): Feature-length documentary about director José Ramón Larraz focusing on two of his most acclaimed films, Vampyres and Symptoms From Barcelona to Tunbridge Wells: The Films of José Larraz (Andrew Starke & Pete Tombs, 1999, 24 mins) Interview with Angela Pleasence (2016): Interview with the film's star Interview with Lorna Heilbron (2016): Interview with the film's co-star Interview with Brian Smedley-Aston (2016): Interview with the film's editor Original theatrical trailer Illustrated booklet with new writing by Vanity Celis and full film credits

• The Doombolt Chase - The Complete Series | DVD | (22/02/2010) from £16.30   |  Saving you £-1.31 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The Doombolt Chase: The Complete Series

• Zulu Dawn | DVD | (27/04/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In 1879 the British Colonies in response to the perceived threat of the Zulu Nation deliver a deliberately unacceptable ultimatum to the King who responds by putting his people on a war footing. Confident in their weapons technology and organization's ability to crush the seemingly outclassed primitive enemy the British invade Zululand. General Lord Chelmsford sends in hundreds of British troops in order to squash the spear-carrying Africans with superior fire power. The sheer number of Zulus however overwhelms the British infantry.

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

  Premier ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev makes his acting debut in this lavish story of the life of the famous silent screen actor Rudolph Valentino who caused female moviegoers to riot in the streets upon his death. Controversial director Ken Russell lavishly recreates the glitzy and decadent atmosphere of the roaring 20's and the presence of Nureyev as Valentino imbues the film with passion rarely found in Hollywood.

• Moonstone | DVD | (26/01/2009) from £17.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Rachel Verinder a young Englishwoman imherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy from her uncle a corrupt English army officer who served in India. The diamond is of great religious significance as well as being enormously valuable and three Hindu priests have dedicated their lives to recovering it. Rachel's eighteenth birthday is celebrated with a large party. She wears the Moonstone on her dress that evening for all to see. Later that night the diamond is stolen from Rachel's bedroom and a period of turmoil unhappiness misunderstandings and ill-luck ensues. Told via a series of narratives from some of the main characters the complex plot traces the subsequent efforts to explain the theft identify the thief trace the stone and recover it.

• Our Mutual Friend (Repackaged) | DVD | (23/01/2012) from £4.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (100.20%)   |  RRP £9.99

  As the river flows silently through Victorian London, its dark waters bring with them a tale of crime and passion. And it’s on the banks of the Thames that the poor, but captivating Lizzy helps her father earn his unwholesome living. But they little suspect that the next body they recover will lead them to a world far removed from their own. A superficial world of dinner parties at the Veneerings and the aspirations of the Wilfers household. And as their lives weave with a multitude of characters, a complex story of love and money emerges with true Dickenson vision.

• Ghost Stories for Christmas Volume 1 (3 x Blu-ray discs) | Blu Ray | (05/12/2022) from £24.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  !Broadcast in the dying hours of Christmas Eve, the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series was a fixture of the seasonal schedules throughout the 1970s and spawned a long tradition of chilling tales, which terrified yuletide viewers for decades to come. This much-requested release gives four landmarks of the series their Blu-ray debut, having been newly remastered by the BFI from original film materials. All based on classic short stories by acclaimed writer MR James, his atmospheric settings and creeping unease are eerily realised in these seminal dramas that unleash evil spirits that will haunt and unnerve. The Films: Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968), The Stalls of Barchester (1971), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973) Extras Presented in High Definition (Limited Edition) Whistle and I'll Come to You (2010, 52 min): John Hurt stars in this more recent reinterpretation of MR James' chilling tale Newly recorded commentaries on Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) and The Stalls of Barchester by Jon Dear Lawrence Gordon Clark introductions (2012, 33 mins): introductions to The Stalls of Barchester, A Warning to the Curious and Lost Hearts previously recorded for the BFI's DVD release Ramsay Campbell on MR James (2001, 16 mins) Jonathan Miller and Christopher Frayling discuss Whistle and I'll Come to You (2012, 3 mins) Neil Brand reads MR James' Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad (2001, 42 mins, audio only) Ramsey Campbell reads his own MR James-inspired story The Guide (2001, 27 mins) Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee: The Stalls of Barchester and A Warning to the Curious (2000, 60 mins total) **LIMITED EDITION ONLY** Illustrated booklet with essays by Reggie Oliver, Jonathan Rigby, Adam Easterbrook and Ramsey Campbell Newly commissioned sleeve art by Matt Needle Other extras TBC

• Brazil | DVD | (19/05/2003) from £9.15   |  Saving you £6.84 (74.75%)   |  RRP £15.99

  If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--Brazil is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. In fact it was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek government clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. It's not a software bug but a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets squashed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unravelling this bureaucratic tangle, he himself winds up labelled as a miscreant. The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. --Jim Emerson On the DVD: Brazil comes to DVD in a welcome anamorphic print of the full director's cut--here running some 136 minutes. Disappointingly the only extra feature is the 30-minute making-of documentary "What Is Brazil?", which consists of on-set and behind-the-scenes interviews. There's nothing about the film's controversial release history (covered so comprehensively on the North American Criterion Collection release), nor is Gilliam's illuminating, irreverent directorial commentary anywhere to be found. The only other extra here is the ubiquitous theatrical trailer. A welcome release of a real classic, then, but something of a missed opportunity. --Mark Walker

• The Remains Of The Day | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £6.98   |  Saving you £6.01 (86.10%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Remains of the Day is one of Merchant-Ivory's most thought-provoking films. Anthony Hopkins is a model of restraint and propriety as Stevens, the butler who "knows his place"; Emma Thompson is the animated and sympathetic Miss Kenton, the housekeeper whose attraction to Stevens is doomed to disappointment. As Nazi appeaser Lord Darlington, James Fox clings to the notion of a gentleman's agreement in the ruthless political climate before World War Two. Hugh Grant is his journalist nephew all too aware of reality, while Christopher Reeves gives a spirited portrayal of an American senator, whose purchase of Darlington Hall 20 years on sends Stevens on a journey to right the mistake he made out of loyalty. As a period drama with an ever-relevant message, this 1993 film is absorbing viewing all the way. On the DVD: the letterbox widescreen format reproduces the 2.35:1 aspect ratio with absolute clarity. Subtitles are in French and German, with audio subtitles also in English, Italian and Spanish, and with 28 separate chapter selections. The "making-of" featurette and retrospective documentary complement each other with their "during and after" perspectives, while "Blind Loyalty, Hollow Honour" is an interesting short on the question of appeasement and war. The running commentary from Thompson, Merchant and Ivory is more of a once-only diversion. --Richard Whitehouse

• Circles of Deceit | DVD | (23/04/2018) from £7.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  This series of 4 made for TV feature length thrillers stars Dennis Waterman (The Sweeney, New Tricks) as John Neil, a Falklands War hero whose family were murdered in an IRA terrorist attack. Neil has withdrawn from society and lives an isolated existence, until MI5 come calling. Former special-forces operative John Neil is a lone agent for hire for Britain's security services. Whether taking on Irish terrorists, tracking down professional assassins, or pitting his wits against ruthless drug dealers, the ex-SAS man harbours no illusions about the work he's doing, or the people he serves. Knowing he is expendable to the security services Neil must face down deadly adversaries relying on his instincts and his SAS training in a world of betrayal, danger, and deceit. These 4 films were made for broadcast on Yorkshire TV between 1993 and 1996.