Comedy

• Coupling: Complete Series 4 | DVD | (16/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Coupling Season 4: feel free to insert your own "four-play" joke, or for that matter, your own "insert" joke. Sex is still topic 1 for the intertwined group of "exes and best friends", but in this pivotal season there are momentous "relationship issues" that will upend all their lives (insert your own "upend" joke while you're at it). Susan is pregnant, inspiring in Steve nightmares about his own execution and unflattering comparisons of the birth process to John Hurt's iconic gut-busting scene in Alien. Missing in action is the Kramer-esque Jeff (although he makes something of a return in the season finale). Joining the ensemble is Oliver, who is more in the Chandler mode as a lovable loser with the ladies. These inevitable comparisons to "Sein-Friends" are no doubt heresy to Coupling's most devoted viewers. Indeed, this series does benefit from creator and sole writer Steven Moffat's comic voice and vision. He provides his ever-game cast some witty, funny-‘cause-it's-true dialogue, as in Oliver's observation that "Tea isn't compatible with porn". This Britcom is also less inhibited in language and sexual situations than its American counterparts. In the cleverly-constructed opening episode, in which the same "9-1/2 Minutes" are witnessed from three different perspectives, Sally and Jane can do what was left to the imagination when Monica and Rachel offered to make out in front of Joey and Chandler. The birth of Susan and Steven's baby ends the six-episode season on a satisfying and surprisingly moving grace note. A bonus disc takes viewers behind the scenes with segments devoted to bloopers and interviews with cast and crew. --Donald Liebenson

• Rita, Sue and Bob Too (DVD + Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (22/05/2017) from £8.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  British films about sex are fairly rare, and mostly embarrassing: from the painfully anxious (Brief Encounter) to the hopelessly naff (the Carry On films). What a treat then is Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Alan Clarke's filming of a stage play by young Andrea Dunbar. It's an unsentimental, gleefully lewd comedy about shagging. Tagged for its cinema release in 1987 as "Thatcher's Britain with its knickers down", it even provoked a minor moral hullabaloo in the newspapers. Rita (Siobhan Finneran) and Sue (Michelle Holmes) are two giggly Bradford lasses stuck on a ramshackle housing estate. They keep themselves in fags by occasional baby-sitting for nouveau riche couple Bob (George Costigan) and Michelle (Lesley Sharp). Bob fancies himself rotten, but Michelle has ruled that sex is off the menu. So one night, driving Rita and Sue home, Bob detours to the Yorkshire moors and offers the girls a little something extra in his front seat. Rita and Sue decide to grab it while they can. Alan Clarke's cult following is founded on his bleak, brilliant films about violent young men (Scum, The Firm, Made in Britain). But Rita, Sue is a tribute to Clarkey's ribald sense of humour. It even sports a cameo from novelty pop-act Black Lace, performing their non-hit "Gang-Bang". Teenage debutantes Holmes and Finneran are terrific--just watch them dancing lustily around Bob's red leather sofa to Bananarama. In support, Clarke wisely cast skilled northern comedians like Patti Nicholls and Willie Ross, as Sue's foul-mouthed mum and dad. Amid the laughs, Clarke as usual doesn't stint from showing us the harsh, unlovely side of life. He shot the film on location at Bradford's Buttershaw estate, where Andrea Dunbar grew up and where, tragically, she died of a brain haemorrhage only a few years after the film's release. --Richard Kelly

• Allo Allo Series 5 Vol. 1 | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The hilarious fifth series of Jimmy Perry and David Croft's wartime sitcom in which cafe owner Rene Artois (Gordon Kaye) avoids his wife (Carmen Silvera) chases after his waitresses and hides two British airmen all the while trying to avoid investigation by the ineffectual German army...

• Ghostbusters | Blu Ray | (27/06/2016) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-10.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When kooky, spooky college profs Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stanz (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) lose their university jobs, they decide to go freelance, de-haunting New York City with a new ghost removal service. As soon as they open their doors, their first order of business becomes saving beautiful cellist Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) and nerdy Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), who've inadvertently opened the gates of hell right in their own apartment building! Experience all the particle beams and ectoplasm like never before, in full 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range! Disc 1 Movie (4K UHD): Movie only Commentary with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis & Joe Medjuck Disc 2 (Special Features BD Disc): Deleted & Alternate Scenes Storyboard Comparisons & Multi-Angle Scene Explorations Ghostbusters Music Video by Ray Parker, Jr. Slimer Mode Picture-in-Picture Featurettes: Who You Gonna Call: A Ghostbusters Retrospective Ecto-1: Resurrecting the Classic Car Ghostbusters Garage: Ecto-1 Gallery 1984 featurette Cast & Crew featurette SFX Team featurette 4K Ultra HD provides the best possible Home Entertainment experience, featuring: 4X the resolution of Full HD High Dynamic Range (HDR) for more detail, vivid colour and greater contrast. For playback in 4K with HDR, you need: 4K UHD TV with HDR Ultra HD Blu-ray Player High-Speed HDMI 2.0A Cable

• Shampoo | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A modish creation teased into life by Warren Beatty, Shampoo was an offbeat Hollywood hit back in 1975. Made after Watergate, it reflects on the hedonism of late-60s Los Angeles with a sad, somewhat cynical eye. Basically a bedroom farce, fuelled by some famously raunchy dialogue, its comedy is nevertheless underlain with melancholy. Screenwriter Robert Towne was inspired by Wycherly's Restoration comedy The Country Wife, wherein a wily fellow convinces friends of his impotence even while he is merrily seducing their wives. Hence, Towne invented handsome Beverly Hills hairdresser George Roundy (Beatty), who ought to be gay, but emphatically isn't. Shampoo begins on US Election Day, 1968, as Nixon is trouncing McGovern at the polls, and George Roundy is trying to sort his life out. An earnest advocate of sensual pleasure, he beds most of his female clients, from the fretful Jill (Goldie Hawn) to the wealthy Felicia (Lee Grant). Yet George is himself unfulfilled, and imagines that owning his own salon will satisfy him. He asks Felicia's husband Lester (Jack Warden) to back him, but first Lester coerces George into squiring his mistress Jackie (Julie Christie) to a Nixon victory party. Inevitably, Jackie is another of George's girls and, having seduced Felicia's vivacious daughter (Carrie Fisher) earlier that day, George has much to conceal from Lester and Felicia as the evening's festivities unravel. Shampoo shows the 60s turning sour. The characters are rich hippies, superficially liberated but deeply unhappy, and blandly indifferent to the dawning of the Nixon era. The excellent Lee Grant won an Oscar, but Shampoo is Beatty's film. He produced it, had a substantive hand in Towne's script, and deputised the nominal director, Hal Ashby. The film mildly exploits legends of Beatty's real-life sexual prowess, but mainly it embodies his commitment to making thoughtful movies for grown-ups. Richard Kelly

• Commedia all'italiana: Three Films by Dino Risi | Blu Ray | (21/08/2023) from £33.45   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Comedy ruled the box office in Italy from the late 1950s to the 1970s where the commedia all'italiana also found critical success. Great talent behind and in front of the camera delivered a series of brilliant films that gave an incredible spin on familiar genres with comedic overtones that often held a dark and biting critique of social mores that would provoke a challenge to a society in need of change. Feted at local awards ceremonies and European festivals as well as garnering attention from the Academy Awards this prestige would propel the films and filmmakers to international stardom but many would go unreleased in the UK for home viewing. At last, this ongoing series shines a light on this misunderstood filmmaking style with the first collection focusing on three films by master director Dino Risi, presented from new restorations and featuring a suite of contextualising extras. From a prestigious lineage in the ancient art of satirical theatre in commedia dell'arte, the Italian-style comedy distinguished itself in the late 1950s from the earlier broad comedies popularised by the likes of Toto and Vittorio De Sica with a ruthless approach to social satire focused on cynicism and the grotesque. An early example of the switch in tone can be found in Dino Risi's Il vedovo, in which Italy's preeminent comedy actor Alberto Sordi plays a philandering husband of a wealthy and successful woman who simply tolerates her husband's ineptitude. Until he sees a potential plan for her death, which would result in a great inheritance for him. One of the greatest Italian actors of all time, Vittorio Gassman (Bitter Rice) known as Il Mattatore 'The Showman' earns his name from this film and his wonderful performance as an actor with the uncanny ability to mimic regional accents, allowing him to pull off a series of scams. Ingeniously plotted by screenwriters Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari who were behind some of the greatest films in the commedia all'italiana including Il Sorpasso and Ugly, Dirty and Bad. Alternately known as Love & Larceny, Dino Risi (Anima Persa) directs this classic comedy which was nominated for the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and makes its English-subtitled Blu-ray debut. A career highlight for director Dino Risi and his star Vittorio Gasman, Il sorpasso isn't just one of the heights of commedia all'italiana but of all Italian cinema. Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Conformist) plays Roberto, a shy law student who meets Bruno (Gassman), a larger-than-life Roman playboy who convinces Roberto to join him on a road trip from Rome to the Tuscan countryside. Their travels teach them about each other and themselves, oscillating between comedy and tragedy with powerful and affecting commentary on the easy life. Long admired in Italy, the film has influenced comedic filmmakers including Alexander Payne (Sideways) and Aziz Ansari (Master of None). Radiance Films is proud to present this seminal film in the UK for the first time from a new 4K restoration. Product Features 2016 4K restoration of Il Sorpasso carried out by L'Immagine Ritrovata at the Cineteca di Bologna, presented in High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) for the first time in the UK High-Definition digital transfers of Il Mattatore and Il Vedovo, presented in world premieres on Blu-ray Original uncompressed Italian mono PCM audio Newly translated optional English subtitles Newly designed artwork based on original posters Limited Edition 80-page perfect bound booklet featuring new writing by scholars and critics including Robert Gordon on the commedia all'italiana boom, Gino Moliterno on Il vedovo; Pasquale Iannone on Age and Scarpelli and the key screenwriters of the commedia all'italiana movement, Christina Newland on Italian machismo and Il sorpasso; a newly translated interview with Dino Risi by Lorenzo Codelli; and extracts of writing by Risi Limited Edition of 3,000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height scanavo cases for each film and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings IL SORPASSO [THE EASY LIFE] Appreciation of the film by Italian cinema expert Richard Dyer Archival interview with Dino Risi by critic Jean Gili (2004) Jean-Louis Trintignant on Il Sorpasso - an introduction by the actor for a French TV broadcast of the film (1983, 8 mins) L'estate di Bruno Cortona - Castiglioncello nell'anno del Sorpasso (Gloria De Antoni, 2012) - an extract from the documentary made for the 50th anniversary of Il Sorpasso featuring the cast and crew On a Trintignant Kick - An audio essay and tribute to Jean-Louis Trintignant by critic and author Tim Lucas, looking at his life and work in the 1960s (2023, 58 mins) Trailer IL MATTATORE [THE SHOWMAN] Interview with Andrea Bini, author of Male Anxiety and Psychopathology in Film: Comedy Italian Style Speaking with Gassman - documentary on the working relationship between Vittorio Gassman and Dino Risi, by Risi's son Marco (2005) Love & Larceny - Michel Hazanavicius on Il Mattatore, an appreciation of the film and Vittorio Gassman by the director of The Artist Trailer IL VEDOVO [THE WIDOWER] Neorealismo rosa - a visual essay by Italian cinema professor and author of Comedy Italian Style Remi Fournier Lanzoni on the softening of neo-realism which laid the groundwork for the emergence of commedia all'italiana Alberto Sordi - a visual essay by critic Kat Ellinger about the great Italian actor Trailer Extras subject to change.

• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Collector's Edition | Blu Ray | (11/11/2024) from £21.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The first instalment of the hit 90's Austin Powers film series returns for the first time in the UK in 4K UHD!In 1967, fashion photographer by day and super-agent by night Austin Powers is on the verge of catching his arch-nemesis, Dr. Evil, when the latter has himself cryogenically frozen. Following suit, Powers unthaws thirty years later in the ˜90s to find Evil threatening the world once more. Can Powers recover from his culture shock in time to battle his old foe? With the help of sexy sidekick Vanessa Kensington, he just might.Featuring a huge ensemble cast including Will Ferrell, Seth Green, Carrie Fisher, Christian Slater, Priscilla Presley and Burt Bacharach, this iconic spy movie parody is undeniably groovy, baby!COLLECTOR'S EDITION SPECIAL CONTENTPremium O-ring packaging featuring brand new, specially designed artworkBonus features totalling more than 3 hours including brand new to UK audio commentary with Jay Roach and Mike MyersAustin & Vanessa Character Featurette, B-Roll, TV Spots and Clips, Character Soundbites and Ming Tea BBC Music VideoPlus four bespoke art cards and poster!

• Beautiful People - Series 2 | DVD | (04/01/2010) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-10.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This is not your average family sitcom because the Doonans are not your average family. The show is the story of a dream the dream that one day Simon would leave suburban Reading and move to London to be with the beautiful people. In fact he moved to New York to become the creative director of Barneys an uber-chic fashion store and to write the memoir on which this hugely exuberant comedy is based. It has song dance jokes bitch-fighting drunken hairdressers black posh spice dolls exploding baked bean cans causing death and a soundtrack featuring Dannii and Kylie Minogue Sophie Ellis Bextor The Pet Shop Boys Sam Wood and Dan Gillespie Sells of The Feeling. Mum and Dad drink homemade wine Simon hangs out with his best friend Kyle better known as Kylie working on dance moves to 90s floor fillers; his sister Ashlene wants to look like Heather Small and hang with the hood whilst his aunty Hayley is blind feisty and eating nuts. Gran meanwhile used to be the nicest woman in the world and has now turned very nasty.

• The Young Offenders | DVD | (02/03/2017) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Two teenage boys cycle 160km on stolen bikes pursued by police to find a missing bale of cocaine worth 7 million euro. Set around the real event of Ireland's biggest cocaine seizure in 2007 of 440 million euro.

• The Aki Kaurismaki Collection - Leningrad Cowboys | DVD | (12/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Leningrad Cowboys Go America: This hilarious road movie follows the misadventures of the worst rock and roll band in the world the Leningrad Cowboys. When a promoter in their native Siberia stunned by the band's lack of talent advises them to try their luck in America they head for New York. Having learned English en-route on the plane and sporting shades outsize quiffs and outrageously long winkle-pickers they are passed off as Americans. Jim Jarmusch in a cameo role as a shifty car salesman sells them an old Cadillac in which they head south with their frozen bass player and a coffin full of beer. Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses: After years of fame and misfortune in Mexico the members of struggling Siberian rock band Leningrad Cowboys decide to return to their native village. Under the guidance of their former manager Vladimir who now calls himself Moses they face a difficult journey over the ocean and across the European continent. But tormented by lack of money fuel and beverages the band begin to murmur against Moses and doubt his motives. On top of this they are persecuted by a certain member of the American intelligence agency who is hunting for the lost nose of the Statue of Liberty. Total Balalaika Show: At Helsinki's Senate Square on June 12 1993 an audience of 70 000 witnessed a historic event: Leningrad Cowboys performed for the first time with the 100 singers 40 musicians and 20 dancers of the Alexandrov Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble on the biggest stage ever seen in Finland. A roaring success the programme included rock classics from ""Happy Together"" and ""Delilah"" to ""Gimme All Your Lovin"" and ""Knocking On Heaven's Door"" as well as traditional hits from the Ensemble's own repertoire. Aki Kaurismki's film of the event is an extraordinary unforgettable encounter of the old and the new and of East and West.

• Easy Virtue | DVD | (16/03/2009) from £7.55   |  Saving you £12.44 (164.77%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jessica Biel ("The Illusionist", "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry") stars as Larita, the avant-garde young woman who takes the Whittaker family by storm.

• Van Wilder: Party Liaison | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £6.64   |  Saving you £9.35 (140.81%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) has managed to spend a decade loafing at college by deliberately failing his finals each year. When his dad wakes up and pulls his funding, Van turns to his party-organising skills and big-man-on-campus image to pay his way. Complications arise when an aspiring college-rag journo (Tara Reid--the girlfriend of the wimpy one in American Pie) shows an interest, and Van begins to question his bachelor-boy lifestyle. Though Van Wilder: Party Liaison contains the occasional clever line ("at least Ms Pacman swallows") and a nice self-referential appearance from Tim Matheson--the original college lothario from the archetypal (and still the best) frat-kids movie, Animal House--it's still fundamentally flawed. It's difficult, for one thing, to believe in the appalling central character's great popularity with his peers--the Fonze he ain't. It's also evident that Reynolds has watched one too many Jim Carrey performances, while Reid's role reduces her to being little more than insubstantial eye-candy. The film's makers have been so anxious to get in all the required references (pot-smoking, bodily functions and nudity) that they've forgotten to make it any good. Worse, along the way it takes cheap gratuitous pot shots at the disabled, the ugly, the old and the obese. Though it purports to be a "party-on" parable, then, its predictably corny denouement and the conventional values it ultimately espouses reek of Republican morality. There are probably worse ways to spend an hour-and-a-half, but it would be hard to call them to mind when watching this execrable, formulaic drivel--do yourself a favour and enjoy American Pie again instead. --Paul Eisinger

• The Cobbler | DVD | (04/01/2016) from £7.85   |  Saving you £12.14 (154.65%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Max Simkin (Adam Sandler) repairs shoes in the same New York shop that has been in his family for generations. Disenchanted with the grind of daily life, Max stumbles upon a magical heirloom that allows him to step into the lives of his customers and see the world in a new way. Sometimes walking in another man's shoes is the only way one can discover who they really are.

• Fawlty Towers - Complete Fawlty Towers | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Fawlty Towers remains a timeless example of comic writing acting and characterisation at its very best. This fantastic complete collection set features all 12 episodes from this classic series. Episodes titles: 1. A Touch of Class 2. The Builders 3. The Wedding Party 4. The Hotel Inspectors 5. Gourmet Night 6. The Germans 7. Communication Problems 8. The Psychiatrist 9. Waldorf Salad 10. The Kipper and the Corpse 11. The Anniversary 12. Basil the Rat

• Sarah Millican - Home Bird Live | DVD | (17/11/2014) from £11.98   |  Saving you £10.00 (100.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Having established herself as one of the UK’s best-loved comedians Sarah Millican returns with a brand new live DVD. Performing to her home crowd at the Newcastle Tyne Theatre the British Comedy Awards’ Queen of Comedy is giving up the party scene (Ann Summers) and settling down (taking her bra off). Determined to put down some roots she now has cats (furry babies) and even a tree (she has a lot of mugs). On this her third live DVD you will learn what to take on a dirty weekend the right amount of meals to have in a day and how to teach a pensioner to swear. Join her for some hilarious domestic bliss!

• Disney's Strange World | Blu Ray | (06/02/2023) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Walt Disney Animation Studios' original action-packed adventure Strange World introduces a legendary family of explorers, the Clades, as they attempt to navigate an uncharted, treacherous land alongside a motley crew that includes a mischievous blob, a three-legged dog and a slew of ravenous creatures.

• Father Goose/Bringing Up Baby | DVD | (29/01/2007) from £14.83   |  Saving you £-1.84 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Bringing Up Baby (Dir. Howard Hawks 1938): A dog belonging to an eccentric heiress (Hepburn) steals a dinosaur bone from David (Grant) an absent-minded Zoology professor. David follows the heiress to her home and all hell breaks loose when he loses his pet leopard known as 'Baby'. Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn give fantastic performances in one of Hollywood's finest screwball comedies superbly directed by Howard Hawks. Father Goose (Dir. Ralph Nelson 1964): During World War II South Sea beachcomber Walter Eckland is persuaded to spy on planes passing over his island. He gets more than he bargained for as schoolteacher Catherine Frenau arrives on the run from the Japanese with her pupils in tow!

• The Big Green | DVD | (29/06/2004) from £3.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (275.69%)   |  RRP £14.99

  From the creators of the smash hit Angels In The Outfield comes a high-spirited comedy equally triumphant - THE BIG GREEN. When a new teacher introduces soccer to her uncoordinated students it kicks off the wildest and wackiest sports tournament anyone has ever seen. With the help of their out-of-shape town sheriff (hilarious Steve Guttenberg - Three Men And A Baby) the kids gain confidence and turn themselves into winners. Suddenly the residents of their sleepy country town bec

• Alan Carr - Yap, Yap, Yap! | DVD | (16/11/2015) from £3.95   |  Saving you £16.04 (406.08%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The one and only Chatty Man, is back with his brand new critically acclaimed show YaP, Yap, Yap! Recorded live at the legendary Hammersmith Apollo as part of his mammoth 158 date UK and Ireland tour. Alan is on top form as he regales the audience with tales of his dogs, going on safari with his mum and flying high with Carol Vorderman. ˜Hooting jabberfest' GUARDIAN ˜Everyone's favourite bespectacled toothy comedian' MIRROR ˜Brilliant' TELEGRAPH

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season 1-8 | DVD | (13/06/2022) from £51.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Includes all 153 episodes! From Primetime Emmy ® Award -winning writers/producers Dan Goor and Michael Schur (Parks and Recreation), starring Andy Samberg (Saturday Night Live) as Jake Peralta and Andre Braugher (Men of a Certain Age) as Raymond Holt, the Golden Globe® Award-winning Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a single-camera ensemble comedy. Brooklyn Nine-Nine follows the exploits of hilarious Det. Jake Peralta (Samberg) and his diverse, lovable colleagues; Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews), Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio), Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) and veteran officers Scully (Joel McKinnon Miller) and Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker); as they police the NYPD's 99th precinct. Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Complete Series comes fully loaded with every single episode, deleted scenes and great bonus features! Bonus Features: Deleted Scenes Get Your Cop On The Squad