"Actor: Phoebe Nicholls"

• Starfish (Based on a True Story) | DVD | (24/04/2017) from £6.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The true and incredibly moving story of Tom and Nicola Ray (Tom Riley, Joanne Froggatt), whose love is tested to the limit when their perfect life falls apart. When Tom puts his small daughter to bed one chilly December evening, he has everything he could ever want - the house of his dreams, the life of a writer, a beautiful wife and a second baby on the way, By the next morning, all of this is in jeopardy as Tom succumbs to the devastating illness that is sepsis. As Tom and Nic battle to hold their family and their marriage together, the strength of their relationship is the only thing that can save them.

• Persuasion | DVD | (01/11/1999) from £14.29   |  Saving you £5.70 (39.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  After a slow beginning, in which the complex tangle of relationships is initially confusing, this BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's last novel, Persuasion, develops into an elegant romantic comedy. Austin combines a subtle dissection of the folly of class with a slow-burning, intensely passionate love story. Anne Elliot (Amanda Root) has loved Captain Wentworth (Ciaran Hinds) ever since she was persuaded to reject him years before. Now he has returned from the Napoleonic wars, but will love be allowed to blossom? Especially when Anne is surrounded by the selfish, petty-minded Mary, misguided by Lady Russell, and burdened by a father obsessed with fairness of countenance above all other considerations. Excepting a basic booklet, on-screen character biographies and a Dolby Digital soundtrack, there is nothing to distinguish this DVD from the video version. The picture is very good, but showing some grain, not exceptional, so unless you have a large television there is little advantage over tape. In any format, what makes this adaptation work is the sharp screenplay by Nick Dear and the naturalistic style of director Roger Mitchell (who joined the A-list with Notting Hill, 1999), together eliciting fine performances from the ensemble cast. Less flamboyant than Pride and Prejudice (1995), this is a civilised treat. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Missionary | DVD | (29/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Fallen women? Does it mean they've hurt their knees? After a decade of soul-saving in Africa Charles Fortescue is asked to minister to the ladies of the night in 1906 London. So Fortescue feeds them shelters them and not infrequently provides them a bed: his! A naive man of the cloth becomes a man of the sheets in this playfully naughty yet always tasteful comedy that stars Monty Python's Michael Palin (who also wrote the script) as Fortescue and features a colourful array of cockeyed characters: a blissful airhead (Phoebe Nicholls) a lusty mission sponsor (Maggie Smith) a bewildered butler (Michael Hordern) an earthy bishop (Denholm Elliott) a cantankerous John Bull (Trevor Howard) and more. Jolly good fun!

• The Crunch and Other Stories | DVD | (25/09/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Best known for his pioneering Quatermass stories and harrowing adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, as well as later TV triumphs like The Stone Tape and The Woman in Black, Nigel Kneale is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest scriptwriters. Making his name at the BBC in the 1950s, he subsequently wrote acclaimed dramas for ITV over the following decades of which three are presented here. The plays on this set showcase some of Kneale's most enduring themes: a deep sympathy for the plight of the individual facing an unimaginable threat; the unease and paranoia of the Cold War era, and fears of an uncertain near-future; and the volatility and potential menace of the crowd. THE CRUNCH stars Harry Andrews as a prime minister attempting to avert a nuclear catastrophe in London; Maxwell Shaw, Anthony Bushell and Peter Bowles are among his co-stars. LADIES' NIGHT is a chilling story of misogyny as members of a gentlemen's club turn on a woman who ridicules them; a strong cast includes Alfred Burke, Ronald Pickup and Bryan Pringle. GENTRY stars Roger Daltrey in a blackly comic suspense drama in which a couple buy a shabby house in an up-and-coming area but find themselves drawn into the aftermath of an armed robbery.

• Brideshead Revisited | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Fill a bowl with alpine strawberries, break out the Château Lafite (1899, of course) and bask in Brideshead Revisited, the 1981 miniseries based on Evelyn Waugh's classic novel, adapted for the screen by John Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey). In his breakthrough role, Jeremy Irons stars as Charles Ryder, a disillusioned Army captain who is moved to reflect on his "languid days" in the "enchanted castle" that was Brideshead, home of the aristocratic Marchmain family, whose acquaintance Charles made in the company of an Oxford classmate, the charming wild-child Sebastian. Anthony Andrews costars as the doomed Sebastian, whose beauty is "arresting" and "whose eccentricities and behaviour seemed to know no bounds". The "entitled and enchanted" Sebastian takes Charles under his wing ("Charles, what a lot you have to learn"), but vows early on that he is "not going to let [Charles] get mixed up with [his] family." But mixed up Charles gets. He becomes a friend and confidante, not to mention a lover, to Sebastian's sister Julia (Diana Quick). Meanwhile, the self-destructive Sebastian's life spirals out of control. Brideshead Revisited boasts a distinguished ensemble cast, including Laurence Olivier in his Emmy Award-winning role as the exiled Lord Marchmain, Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain, and the magnificent John Gielgud as Charles's estranged father. Grand locations and a haunting musical score make this a memorable revisit of an irretrievable bygone era. --Donald Liebenson

• Women In Love | DVD | (02/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Before director Ken Russell's name became synonymous with cinematic extravagance and overkill, he actually directed what is one of the most passionate and involving adaptations of DH Lawrence in recent memory. Oliver Reed and Alan Bates star as friends who fall in love with a pair of sisters (Jennie Linden and Glenda Jackson, who won an Oscar for the role). But the relationships take markedly different directions, as Russell explores the nature of commitment and love. Bates and Linden learn to give themselves to each other; the more withdrawn Reed cannot, finally, connect with the demanding and challenging Jackson. Shot with great sensuality, Women in Love was surprisingly frank for its period (1970) and includes one of the most charged scenes in movie history: Bates and Reed as manly men, wrestling nude by firelight. --Marshall Fine

• Shackleton | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £6.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Shackleton is not a biopic of the great Anglo-Irish explorer but a dramatisation of the failed trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914-16. As written and directed by Charles (Longtitude) Sturridge the production, filmed on real ice floes in Greenland, stays remarkably close to the facts, capturing the look of the surviving expedition photos of Frank Hurley (collected in the book South With Endurance) with great fidelity. Kenneth Branagh makes no attempt at an authentic accent but otherwise gives a powerful impression of a most commanding personality. When the expedition ship Endurance became locked in the Antarctic ice Shackleton vowed to bring every man home alive, and against virtually impossible odds, including a 700-mile journey in an open boat through some of the worst seas in the world, he did just that. This superlative mini-series realises the story with production values and cinematography which would not disgrace a big-budget feature (Hurley's own 1919 documentary film can be seen on video in South). Intense physical drama, strong performances and Adrian Johnston's fine score combine here to deeply moving effect, marred only a little by a rushed conclusion. With Roland Huntford, author of the definitive Shackleton biography, as production advisor, this easily stands as the benchmark for all future comparable films. --Gary S Dalkin

• Gulliver's Travels | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £15.99   |  Saving you £-6.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Ebulliently imaginative and far more cleverly presented than you would expect from a TV miniseries, this adaptation of Gulliver's Travels succeeds by never pandering to the lowest common denominator. Closely based on Jonathan Swift's 1726 classic, it is enhanced by dazzling special effects from Jim Henson Productions and a superb, multi-ethnic cast. The biggest surprise is Ted Danson in the title role--one of his best performances, even if he is the only person in England with an American accent. He conveys amusement, amazement and intelligence as he travels from one strange country into another. Not that anyone back in Blighty believes Mr Gulliver's tales of little people or giants. The story is told in flashback from an insane asylum, where he is forcibly confined. This far outshines several previous adaptations of Swift's satirical novel. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com

• Maurice (the Merchant Ivory Collection) | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The second of the Merchant/Ivory films (A Room with a View, Howard's End), Maurice deals with a theme few period pieces dare mention--a young man's struggle with his homosexuality. It's not just a gay coming-of-age story, however. The hero wrestles with British class society as much as his personal and sexual identity.The film opens on a stormy, windswept beach, as an older man awkwardly instructs young, fatherless Maurice Hall (James Wilby) in the "sacred mysteries" of sex. The same turbulent, wordless struggle with passion lasts throughout this slowly evolving, beautifully filmed story. Novelist E M Forster's brainy, British melodrama hinges on choice and compulsion, as the pensive hero falls for two completely different men. First comes frail, suppressed Clive (Hugh Grant), who wants nothing more than classical Platonic harmony ... and a straight lifestyle. (Grant's performance is so convincing, one wonders how he ever became a heterosexual sex symbol.) After Clive's wedding, Maurice turns to hypnosis to cure his unspeakable longings. Unfortunately, his "cure" is interrupted by Clive's lustful, brooding, barely literate gamekeeper Scudder (Rupert Graves), a worker more at home gutting rabbits than discussing the classics. Maurice's love for a "social inferior" forces him to confront his illicit desire and his ingrained class snobbery. --Grant Balfour

• Maurice | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The second of the Merchant/Ivory films (A Room with a View, Howard's End), Maurice deals with a theme few period pieces dare mention--a young man's struggle with his homosexuality. It's not just a gay coming-of-age story, however. The hero wrestles with British class society as much as his personal and sexual identity.The film opens on a stormy, windswept beach, as an older man awkwardly instructs young, fatherless Maurice Hall (James Wilby) in the "sacred mysteries" of sex. The same turbulent, wordless struggle with passion lasts throughout this slowly evolving, beautifully filmed story. Novelist E M Forster's brainy, British melodrama hinges on choice and compulsion, as the pensive hero falls for two completely different men. First comes frail, suppressed Clive (Hugh Grant), who wants nothing more than classical Platonic harmony ... and a straight lifestyle. (Grant's performance is so convincing, one wonders how he ever became a heterosexual sex symbol.) After Clive's wedding, Maurice turns to hypnosis to cure his unspeakable longings. Unfortunately, his "cure" is interrupted by Clive's lustful, brooding, barely literate gamekeeper Scudder (Rupert Graves), a worker more at home gutting rabbits than discussing the classics. Maurice's love for a "social inferior" forces him to confront his illicit desire and his ingrained class snobbery. --Grant Balfour

• Midsomer Murders - A Tale Of Two Hamlets | DVD | (08/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Nothing is as it seems behind the well-trimmed hedges of the picturesque cottages in the idyllic English county of Midsomer. Beneath the tranquil surface of sleepy village life exist dark secrets scandals and downright evil. John Nettles stars as the humorous thoughtful and methodical Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby. The Smythe-Websters are a rich family whose wealth and power dominate the two local villages of Upper and Lower Warden Manor. The Head of the Manor's nephew Larry i

• Dennis Potter At London Weekend Television | DVD | (12/09/2005) from £34.88   |  Saving you £-14.89 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dennis Potter has long been acknowledged as one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century. Though he had considerable successes with the series format (such as The Singing Detective and Casanova) it is generally accepted that his strongest work is the single play of which he did many for both the BBC and ITV. In celebration of both Potter's body of work and the fiftieth anniversary of ITV this collection celebrates three of his most signif

• TV Drama: Sword Of Honour, Shackleton, Longitude | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Sword Of HonourAward-winning novelist and screenwriter William Boyd brings Evelyn Waugh's classic trilogy of the Second World War vividly to life in this epic two-part drama starring Daniel Craig Megan Dodds Leslie Phillips Julian Rhind-Tutt Robert Pugh and Katrina Cartlidge. ShackletonDirected by Charles Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited Gulliver's Travels Longitude) this biopic of explorer Ernest Shackleton (Kenneth Branagh) is at once a fascinating character study of a driven man and a thrilling true life adventure. Concentrating on Shackleton's 1914 Endurance expedition to the the South Pole it details the incredible struggle he undertook to lead his 28 man crew to safety after his ship was trapped and then crushed in the pack ice. LongitudeLongitude 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 Gold (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.