"Actor: Wayne Foskett"

• Hetty Wainthropp Investigates - Series 1 | DVD | (06/04/2009) from £13.89   |  Saving you £9.09 (83.39%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Mystery buffs will find Hetty Wainthropp to be delightful and uniquely entertaining company. Hetty has just turned 60, but she is not about to "ride serene into the evening tide," as her doting husband so poetically puts it. "I'm not 60 and I never will be," Hetty proclaims. "I'm not a senior citizen." Hetty wants to matter, so she gets a job at her local Lancashire post office. But that wouldn't make for much of a miniseries. Before you can say "cheeky monkey," she has involved herself in a deadly case of pension-fund fraud, and made a splash on the front pages as a "Super Gran Sleuth." The redoubtable Patricia Routledge, best known as Hyacinth Bucket on the beloved Keeping Up Appearances), does lovely work as Hetty, who first appeared in David Cook's 1986 novel, Missing Persons (Cook co-wrote the six first-season episodes contained here). Hetty is not as quaint as Miss Marple, nor her cases as seamy as Jane Tennison's Prime Suspect mysteries. She is a formidable character in her own right, opening her own private detective agency, and recruiting a 17-year-old shoplifter (Dominic Monaghan from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) to be her "devoted sidekick." A rogue cop, a roving arsonist, and other unsavory characters are no match for the woman who won't rest until things add up. As one police inspector grudgingly admits, "She's an extraordinary woman. She's no Miss Marple, but..." But, indeed. --Donald Liebenson

• A Bit of a Do - Complete DVD Box Set | DVD | (05/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  All the episodes from both series of the TV comedy: 'The White Wedding' 'The Dentist Dinner Dance' 'The Angling Club Christmas Party' 'The Charity Horse Racing Evening' 'The Crowning of Miss Frozen Chicken UK' 'The Registry Office Wedding' 'The Church Wedding' 'The Christening' 'The Grand Opening Of Sillitoes' 'The Farewell Party' 'The Inauguration Of The Outer Inner Relief Ring Road' 'The Funeral' and 'The Civil Wedding'.