"Director: Bill Anderson"

• TAGGART NEW BLOOD - 6 New cases to solve | DVD | (07/03/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Now the longest-running crime drama on UK television Taggart is back with a series of new episodes a more contemporary feel and a host of guest characters. The city of Glasgow offers a unique backdrop and a characteristic dry wit. So whether it's making the connection between the torture and mutilation of a newly qualified doctor and drug trafficking or investigating when a seemingly open and shut arson and murder investigation becomes more sinister the team are always on hand. But there are also a series of personal issues threatening to derail their investigation as lives begin to spiral out of control. Episodes Comprise: Bad Medicine Abuse of Trust Silent Truth Fallen Angels Bloodsport Ends of Justice

• Dockers | DVD | (01/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Dockers is a landmark one-off drama suspended somewhere between Ken Loach and Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff. A striking Channel Four production Dockers dramatises the infamous struggle that developed when five Merseyside dockworkers were fired for refusing to work overtime with no pay, and gained the support of co-workers who wouldn't cross their picket line. As a result, those who stood in solidarity with the original five were sacked as well--500 in total--leading to a two-year stand-off. Co-written by award-winning screenwriters Jimmy McGovern (Cracker) and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), the two-year ordeal is brought home with startling reality, not least because of the contribution of the real-life Liverpool dockers who helped develop the script in extensive writing workshops, lending the film an authenticity it might have otherwise lacked. While the narrative hangs around the moving central story of one family in which both father and son are caught up in the strike, dramatic conflicts develop on multiple levels: between father and son; between the families of the sacked workers (this is particularly well realised as one long-time friend, played by The Royle Family's Ricky Tomlinson, turns scab); and between the workers and the union that betrays them. Ken Stott and Crissy Rock (Ladybird, Ladybird) are outstanding as the central working-class couple, old before their time at 47, and if nothing else, the film reveals one further reason why Liverpool loved Robbie Fowler quite so ferociously: during post-goal celebrations, Fowler lifts his jersey to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with a message of support for the wronged dockers, ensuring national attention for the action at a time when all hope seemed lost. --Tricia Tuttle

• 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.

• Chaplin's Essanay Comedies, Vol. 2 | DVD | (28/09/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A