DVD Review: Star duo shine in Christie tales

Jet Storm, starring Richard Attenborough

Among her many other creations were Tommy and Tuppence, whose amateur detective work always seemed fair and friendly compared to today’s testesterone-fuelled crime busters.

Their 1920s-era investigations in word and on film - the 1980s TV series starring with Francesca Annis and James Warwick still stands the test of time - have now been given a timely revamp with the near-perfect teaming of David Walliams and Jessica Raine as the husband and wife sleuths Tommy Beresford and Prudence ‘Tuppence’ Beresford.

Their latest forays, neatly updated to the 1950s, have just finished their Sunday-night screenings on BBC1 and are now available on RLJ Entertainment’s Acorn label, price £24.99.

Partners In Crime, starring with Jessica Raine and David Walliams.

The two-disc set, which has bonus cast interviews and more than 90 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, has a seven-hour running time and sees the couple involved with murder, undercover agents and conspiracies in two separate cases - The Secret Adversary and N or M?

The former sees the couple on the trail of a girl who goes missing on a train, while in N or M the pair are commandeered by Tommy’s uncle, Major Carter (James Fleet from The Vicar of Dibley), to investigate which person in a Cromer guesthouse has stolen a nuclear bomb.

n Already out in the Simply Media label are two classics which celebrate the life and career of award-winning actor Sir Richard Attenborough on the first anniversary of his death.

This double release is a DVD debut for the 1947 thriller Dancing With Crime (PG) in which Attenborough as taxi driver Ted gets caught up with the police and gang bosses when his ex-Army comrade, Dave (Bill Rowbotham, aka Bill Owen from Last of the Summer Wine) is found dead in the back of his cab.

Richard Attenborough stars in recently released DVD Dancing With Crime

The set, both of which are priced at £12.99, is completed by the aviation drama Jet Storm (PG) from 1959 in which ‘Dickie,’ bereft at the death of his daughter in a hit-and-run accident, tracks down the driver to an airport where he boards the same plane armed with a homemade bomb that he threatens to detonate in mid-air.

This star-studded thriller co-stars Stanley Baker (Hell Drivers), Hermione Baddeley (Mary Poppins), Paul Eddington (Yes, Minister and The Good Life) and Diane Cilento (The Wicker Man).