"Actor: Robert Smythe"

• Ripping Yarns | DVD | (21/04/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  After Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-74), and well before going Around the World in 80 Days (1989), Pole to Pole (1992) or even Full Circle (1997), Michael Palin starred in Ripping Yarns, co-written with Terry Jones. As the title suggests, these were spoofs, affectionate pastiche-come-homage Boy's Own-type adventures. Each was an individual short film, less bizarre than the Flying Circus, not so consistently hilarious as fellow ex-Python John Cleese's Fawlty Towers, but inventively surreal with a daffy, gloriously English eccentricity. "Tomkinson's Schooldays" was the 45-minute pilot (originally shown as a one-off programme in 1976) and the funniest of the three tales here. A parody of Tom Brown's Schooldays, the humour comes from the violence, cruelty and insane rules of Graybridge public school in which the unfortunate Tomkinson is incarcerated. Ian Ogilvy is a fine School Bully, terrifying even Terry Jones' useless headmaster. "Escape from Stalag Luft 112B" is a P.O.W. movie send-up (from the first series), and "Golden Gordon" (from Series 2) celebrates the man who won't give-up on an underdog northern football team. In 1983 Palin made The Missionary, essentially a feature-film Ripping Yarn. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Ripping Yarns - The Box Set | DVD | (24/10/2002) from £69.99   |  Saving you £-45.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Ripping Yarns: six episodes of Michael Palin's remarkable comedy showcase in one box set. The Testing of Eric Olthwaite: Set in the days of dark 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. Tompkinson's Schooldays: Set in the Edwardian era the heyday of school stories it has all the authentic ingredients for absolutely topping schoolboy fun - excitement adventure heroes and bullies. Escape from Stalag Luft 112B: A tale of courage and valour from behind the lines in the Kaiser's Germany. An inspiring story of camp life and British officer who won't lie down! Whinfrey's Last Case: Dashing debonair 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? The Curse of the Claw: Gothic horror comes to Maidenhead. A timely reminder of what happens when men dabble in the dark world of oriental superstition. Michael Palin aided by plastic surgery plays old and young Kevin as well as Kevin's childhood hero Uncle Jack - an enormously cheerful physical disaster area who has had every disease known to man usually at the same time. Golden Gordon: Superfan Gordon Ottershaw supports a team which hasn't won a match for six years. But worse is yet to come when Gordon and his bicycle clips are re-united in a last desperate bid for glory.