So those nice people at Vouchercodes.co.uk emailed me - and a few other bloggers - a while back to ask us for some recommendations for DVD boxsets released this year that would make nice Christmas presents. Taking a bit of a departure from the norm, rather than "Presents for Mum - she'll love Miranda!", "Presents for Dad - he'll love Top Gear!", "Presents for Sis - she'll love The Vampire Diaries!" et al, which let's face it, is never going to work for everyone or even the majority of people and would probably end up being offensive, I decided to go for three separate categories: drama, comedy and factual.

So decide what genre your relative likes then pick a gift: at the very least, you might introduce someone you love to something good.

Continue reading "TMINE's recommendations for last-minute boxsets for Christmas!"

Read other posts about: Bron/Broen/The Bridge, Community, Homeland, Modern Family, Strike Back

Starring: Phyllis Calvert, Richard O'Sullivan, Peter Wyngarde, Robert Raglan, Peter Arne et al
Price: £19.99 (Amazon price: £13.99; Network price: £12.24)
Released: October 22nd 2012

So here's the sales spiel:

A woman comes forward as one of several claimants to the Romanov fortune. Is she really the Grand Duchess Tatiana, daughter of the last Czar of Russia?

A pint-sized parachutist proves too tough for the USAF; he is a ten-year-old Polish orphan, wearing a sergeant’s uniform and found as a stowaway on a British cargo ship.

In post-war Naples, a young priest, Father Maggiore Borrelli, lives and works among the scugnizzi – wild street gangs of abandoned children and teenagers.

April, 1945: a war correspondent arrives in Munich in search of a world scoop. Instead, in Hitler’s home, he finds and reveals one of the war’s strangest exploits...

Just a few of the accounts brought to life in this anthology of thirteen individual dramas based on the adventures of famous foreign correspondents – witnesses to some of the most extraordinary stories of the twentieth century. First screened in 1957 and unseen for over fifty years, Overseas Press Club – Exclusive! features performances by, among many others, Phyllis Calvert, Richard O’Sullivan, Peter Wyngarde, Robert Raglan and Peter Arne.

Sounds desperately exciting, doesn't it? Certainly, it did to me – tales of journalists doing derring do things. Yey!

Wrong. Unfortunately, that's not what Overseas Press Club – Exclusive! is about at all.

Continue reading "Review: Overseas Press Club – Exclusive! (1957)"

Talking of Redcap, while I'm about it, I thought I'd post this review of the second series on DVD that I wrote for Action TV when that was still being published. (Yes, that is Diana Rigg - the show was made by ABC, which also made The Avengers).

But first, here's a whole episode, Crime Passionel, which I'll discuss later.

Continue reading "Review: Redcap - Season 2"

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