Broadcast between 1991 and 1997, The Brittas Empire is a sitcom set in Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. It stars Chris Barrie as Gordon Brittas, the prattish, blazered manager who remains loudly oblivious to the fact that his high-handed efforts at running the place result in utter calamity. As his gin-supping, nervous wreck of a wife observes, he thinks he's the oil that lubricates the machine but in reality he's "a bag of grit".

This first series introduces Brittas, whose arrival at the new Centre prompts a rash of resignations as his petty and pedantic managerial methods constantly rebound on him. Mishaps in these episodes include a malfunctioning set of automatic doors, a disastrous wedding in the pool and a lost baby. Somehow, however, Brittas' strange sense of idealism keeps him bobbing up as all others sink into despair.

The Brittas Empire could either be seen as a satire on the new tier of superfluous middle-management types who flourished in Tory Britain, or a 90s update of the old stereotype of the bureaucratic buffoon. Compared to, say, Alan Partridge, Brittas seems a bit broad and one-dimensional, a sketch-show character stretched beyond its limits. The rest of the cast don't offer much in the way of resistance or support and Brittas very swiftly becomes very annoying. Despite all problems, however, The Brittas Empire was an immense success, attracting over eight-million viewers at its peak.

On the DVD: The Brittas Empire include some perfunctory, text-only items, including a Chris Barrie biography and a Brittas Fitness Quiz, as well as a sketch performed at the Royal Variety Performance of 1996, in which Brittas reveals himself as an enthusiast for conformity with EEC regulations. --David Stubbs

The ultimate depiction of workplace perdition has to be Whitbury Leisure Centre in The Brittas Empire, despite the later claim of The Office to the title. And while David Brent seems all too uncomfortably real, Chris Barrie's Gordon Brittas carried the gung-ho officiousness of mediocre middle-management to its surreal conclusion. The Brittas Empire could never quite make up its mind if it was a quasi-realistic sitcom or a fantasy comedy, and it's this uneasy mixture that invites you to question whether there's anything terribly funny about unplanned single parenthood, childcare problems, assault in the workplace and women who are addicted to prescription drugs (see also Waiting for God) because of their partners' behaviour. Then, just as you're pondering all this, Brittas comes out with another mouthful of managerial psychobabble that makes you realise that only this kind of tragi-comic exaggeration is robust enough to stand up to Barrie's monstrous creation.

This second series treads a fine line between the merely bleak and the really rather nasty with exquisite precision. It opens with the news that Brittas has been killed abroad in an industrial accident, prompting his tranquillizer-addled wife to mourn him for less time than it takes her to remarry--except, of course, that Brittas is alive and well. Along the way, receptionist Carole attempts to murder Brittas with a JCB when she mistakenly thinks he's assaulted her baby, which she keeps in a cupboard under her desk.

On the DVD: The Brittas Empire, Series 2 carries all seven episodes on two discs, together with several extras including a gallery, a profile and a Brittas Management Quiz (don't ask!). --Roger Thomas

Britten's last opera, Death in Venice will always be associated with the two voices for which the major parts in it were written. It is the achievement of Robert Tear and Alan Opie, in this magisterial performance by Graeme Jenkins with the Glyndebourne touring company, to produce telling performances that are entirely separate from our memories. Tear's Aschenbach is more bull-like than Peter Pears' moralist dreamer; his drift into sentimental eroticisation of the boy Tadzio upsets him as much for the weakness it reveals as for the collapse of his virtue. Alan Opie is as much of a virtuoso as John Shirley-Quirk in the multiple roles that culminate in the corrupting voice of Dionysus--the hotelier who persuades Aschenbach to stay, the barber who gives him a toupee and paints his face, the street entertainer, the rake who flirts with sailors; the otherworldly counter-tenor of Michael Chance is spookily right as Apollo. The scenes for dancers manage to be at once dreams of the erotic and plausible adolescent sea-side wrestling; the direction by Stephen Lawless and Martha Clarke manages to capture the mistiness of the piece from which fate and strangeness suddenly emerge.

On the DVD: The DVD has subtitles in German, French and Spanish, as well as an acoustic which brings out the subtleties of Britten's string, brass and percussion in this difficult work. --Roz Kaveney

Owen Wingrave is perhaps Britten's most radical opera, both politically and artistically. Originally written for television, and here presented in a 2001 Channel 4 version, the 1970 score is based, like The Turn of the Screw, on a Henry James ghost story. Britten, though, is more in tune than James with the pacifism into which Owen revolts from a long family tradition of military service. The fluid, impassioned, often declamatory music given Owen makes him one of the most sympathetic of Britten's outsider protagonists, though he has a streak of self-centredness, which stops him being an implausible paragon. Gerald Finley is quite admirable in the part, conveying fully the sense that by losing and dying at the hands of family ghosts, Owen demonstrates the integrity which is central to his character. The other parts are admirably filled here, notably Martyn Hill as Owen's harsh General grandfather, Josephine Barstow as his aunt and Charlotte Hellekant as the fiancee who unknowingly sends him to his death. They and Elizabeth Gale are quite extraordinary in the first act quartet of recrimination and condemnation.

This excellent performance compares vocally with the original on almost entirely equal terms--modern technology means that the ghost scenes are far more dramatic and plausible. Kent Nagano and the Berlin Orchestra do full subtle justice to the chamber orchestra sonorities of one of Britten's most interesting scores, never overstressing its complex musical architecture at the expense of the drama.

On the DVD: Owen Wingrave is presented in a widescreen 16:9 visual aspect ratio with PCM stereo sound. It is accompanied by The Tender Heart, a documentary about Britten's career full of personal reminiscences by his surviving friends, colleagues and family, that concentrates on Peter Grimes, the War Requiem and Death in Venice, the three popular masterpieces of his early, middle and late career. It has menus and subtitles in English, French, German and Spanish. --Roz Kaveney

Broadway Danny Rose is vintage Woody Allen. Danny (Allen) is a down-at-heel theatrical agent whose regular clients include talking bird acts and a man who twists balloons into animal shapes. His faith in these eccentrics never fails, despite the fact that everyone leaves him for another agent in the end. Complications ensue when one of his clients, an overweight crooner, starts a romance with a mafia widow (excellently played by Allen's partner of the time, Mia Farrow). The mob think Danny is her boyfriend, forcing the two of them to take evasive action, at one point dodging bullets among giant floats for a forthcoming Fourth of July parade. The script is witty, the acting superb, the situations inventive. The film is shot in black and white and looks superb for it.

On the DVD: The DVD is widescreen, with extremely clear sound so you won't miss a single wisecrack. Dialogue is available in French, German, Italian and Spanish as well as English. It's a pity, however--since the film is so short (84 minutes)--that there are no extras apart from the theatrical trailer. --Ed Buscombe