Musicals and Stage

• Annie | DVD | (11/12/2000) from £8.16   |  Saving you £4.83 (59.19%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Though it's not in the same league as the classic screen musicals, Annie's heartwarming rags-to-riches storyline, social comment (shallow as it may be) and catchy songs make for an entertaining and unpretentious 90 minutes' viewing. Aileen Quinn is the irrepressible titular orphan, by no means as irritating as she looks in the cover picture; Albert Finney is Oliver Warbucks, the tyrannical tycoon (with a hidden heart of gold, of course) who adopts her for a week in the interests of good PR. The real show-stopper, though, is Carol Burnett as the gin-soaked harpy Miss Hannigan, ruling with an iron fist over an orphanage full of unruly girls, flirting with every man in sight and eventually scheming with her unscrupulous brother (Tim Curry) to kidnap Annie and reap a fat Warbucks reward cheque. While the songs--including "Tomorrow", "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" and "It's a Hard Knock Life"--are excellent, the kids' voices are shrill and the production pretty low-rent: Annie is very obviously a stage show brought to screen on a low budget. But while it lacks the polish that make the Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe musicals so special, it's funny and sweet and has a rough charm all its own. On the DVD: The film is presented in widescreen, preserving its original 2.35:1 aspect, and is enhanced for 16:9 widescreen TVs; the soundtrack is Dolby surround, though as noted above the music score is relatively rough and ready so top-notch sound isn't actually as important as it would be in other musicals. The extras are pretty disappointing--an uninspired interactive menu features only the obligatory multi-language subtitles, (very) short biographies of the key cast members, a few publicity cards and posters, the theatrical trailer and--most interestingly--an isolated musical score. No commentary from director John Huston, no documentaries, nothing about the 1930s cartoon strip that was, apparently, one of the most popular of its day. There's actually more information in the accompanying booklet than there is on the disc. --Rikki Price

• An American In Paris | DVD | (20/07/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Glee - Complete Season 1-3 | DVD | (17/09/2012) from £126.88   |  Saving you £-41.89 (-49.30%)   |  RRP £84.99

  Glee is a biting musical comedy that has quickly become a pop-culture phenomenon. It boasts critical acclaim, a loyal fan base of 'GLEEks,' two certified Gold albums, more than 10 million song downloads and an incredible 19 Emmy� nominations--earning it the distinction of being the most-nominated series of the year. Glee follows a group of eager and ambitious students as they strive to outshine their singing competition while navigating the cruel halls of McKinley High. Although New ...

• Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes | Blu Ray | (21/09/2021) from £15.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Royal Wedding | DVD | (20/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Brother and sister dance act Tom and Ellen Bowen finish an engagement in New York and journey to London at around the same time as a Royal wedding. On board the cruise ship Ellen meets and falls in love with Lord John Brindale with the result she pays less attention to her dancing. Upon arrival in London Tom auditions for a new partner and meets Anne Ashmond but romance starts to threaten the act...

• Tommy Igoe: Great Hands For A Lifetime | DVD | (01/01/2000) from £19.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Roustabout | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Elvis formula was well in place by the time of 1964's Roustabout, a concoction of undistinguished songs (anyone remember "Poison Ivy League"?), pretty girls, tight pants, a colourful setting and a little bit of karate to prove that Elvis really had been studying his martial arts. With that understood, Roustabout is a better-than-average work-out for the King--not as peppy as Viva Las Vegas, but a good deal livelier than the sleepwalking It Happened at the World's Fair. Elvis plays a bad-boy singer roaming the highways on his Japanese motorcycle; laid up after an accident, he joins a carnival owned by the feisty Barbara Stanwyck. ("This is not a circus, it's a carnival. There's a big difference.") The cast goes from high to low: both giant-sized future James Bond villain Richard Kiel and tiny Billy Barty are carny regulars, and Raquel Welch has a small role in the opening scene. Teri Garr is one of the carnival dancers behind Elvis. The legendary costume designer Edith Head puts Elvis in a series of snappy windbreakers, but thank goodness he's also in black leather a lot. As if that weren't enough to recommend it, the movie has a sequence involving Elvis riding a cycle inside the "Wall of Death", a huge wooden cylinder with high walls. This bit actually inspired an entire Irish film in 1986, Eat the Peach, in which friends build a similar contraption after they watch Roustabout on tape. --Robert Horton

• Kenneth Macmillan's Anastasia - Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky & Bohuslav Martin | DVD | (01/09/2017) from £20.35   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Great Ballets Bolshoi Vol.2 | Blu Ray | (30/11/2018) from £29.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Merry Widow: The Metropolitan Opera (Davis) | Blu Ray | (04/12/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Flying Down to Rio | DVD | (14/04/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1933, RKO Pictures had the bright idea of pairing Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond for their new musical blockbuster, Flying Down to Rio. The film was a smash, but not for the reasons anyone expected. The fourth and fifth-billed stars were an RKO bit player and a Broadway man breaking into Hollywood. Their names were Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and their pairing in this and eight subsequent RKO films would help to rewrite cinematic history. Most of Rio's screen time is spent on a humdrum romantic triangle involving Del Rio, Raymond and Raul Roulien, but Fred (as Fred Ayres) and Ginger (as Honey Hayes) are still able to establish many of the trademarks of their later films. Ginger fronts the band (with Fred on accordion) in the saucy "Music Makes Me", and Fred does some solo tap then sings and leads the band for the spectacular airborne finale featuring chorus girls perched on the wings of biplanes. The heart of the film is "The Carioca", a company dance extravaganza that would be imitated by "The Continental" and "The Piccolino" in later films. Here Fred and Ginger take the floor together for the first time; their eyes meet and their foreheads touch. Their dance lasts only a few minutes, but it was the highlight of the film and audiences wanted more. A prophetic moment occurs toward the beginning of the dance, when, after watching for a while, Fred grabs Ginger and tells her, "I want to try this. Come on, Honey". She declares, "We'll show 'em a thing or three". They did indeed. It was magic, and it was only the beginning. --David Horiuchi, Amazon.com

• Blue Man Group - The Complex Rock Tour - Live | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £19.90   |  Saving you £-4.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Blue Man Group are a group of artistes dedicated to creating exciting and innovative work in a wide variety of media. They are best known for their award-winning theatrical productions which critics have described as 'ground breaking' 'hilarious' 'visually stunning' and 'musically powerful'. These performances feature 3 bald and blue characters who take the audience through a multi-sensory experience that combines theatre percussive music art science and vauderville into a form

• Hindemith: Mathis Der Maler | Blu Ray | (13/08/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Pal Joey | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £7.13   |  Saving you £5.86 (82.19%)   |  RRP £12.99

  First born in the pages of The New Yorker, then translated into a hit Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical, the title character of Pal Joey had undergone quite a transformation by the time he hit the movies in 1957. He was a singer, rather than a dancer, but more importantly he'd had his rough edges sweetly softened; the callous heel dreamed up by novelist John O'Hara was more of a naughty scamp in the film version. However, Pal Joey remains delightfully watchable for two very good reasons: a terrific song score and a surplus of glittering star power. Frank Sinatra, at the zenith of his cocky, world-on-a-string popularity, glides through the film with breezy nonchalance, romancing showgirl Kim Novak (Columbia Pictures' new sex symbol) and wealthy widow Rita Hayworth (Columbia Pictures' former sex symbol). The film also benefits from location shooting in San Francisco, caught in the moonlight-and-supper-club glow of the late 50s. Sinatra does beautifully with the Rodgers and Hart classics "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" and "I Could Write a Book" and his performance of "The Lady Is a Tramp" (evocatively shot by director George Sidney) is flat-out genius. Sinatra's ease with hep-cat lingo nearly outdoes Bing Crosby at his best, and included in the DVD is a trailer in which Sinatra instructs the audience in "Joey's Jargon", a collection of hip slang words such as "gasser" and "mouse." If not one of Sinatra's very best movies, Pal Joey is nevertheless a classy vehicle that fits like a glove. --Robert Horton

• The Tommy Steele Story | Blu Ray | (09/11/2020) from £14.19   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Verdi: Nabucco | DVD | (16/03/2015) from £3.82   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Morricone Conducts Morricone | DVD | (22/01/2016) from £14.55   |  Saving you £3.44 (23.64%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A genuine premier and over and above that starring the biggest motion picture composer of the present day: Ennio Morricone.Morricone is well-known to moviegoers his soundtracks are invariably warmly melodic and superbly suited to the films they grace.Including film clips!

• Verdi - La Traviata | Blu Ray | (01/04/2011) from £22.71   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Saul: Glyndebourne Festival | DVD | (26/07/2024) from £23.88   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Wagner: Der fliegende Holl?nder | Blu Ray | (08/07/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A