Billy Elliot/Steel Magnolias/Erin Brockovich Julia Roberts 2006 DVD Top-quality

Box set containing three popular drama movies. ‘Billy Elliot’ (2000) is set in County Durham during the 1984 miners’ strike. Young Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) becomes fascinated with the ballet lessons which are being held in the same hall as his boxing class. The ballet teacher, Mrs Wilkinson (Julie Walters), recognises his potential and encourages him to join her class. As his talent gradually reveals itself, it becomes clear that Billy should be attending the Royal Ballet School in London, but with his father’s opposition and the extreme poverty which descends on the area during the strike, Billy’s future is far from certain. ‘Steel Magnolias’ (1989) is a female-bonding story adapted from the play by Robert Harling and based around the lives of six women who regularly get together in a Louisiana beauty parlour to discuss their lives and the men that invade them. Shelby (Julia Roberts) is the youngest of the group and despite suffering from severe diabetes, plans her wedding and then the birth of her first child like any other newly-wed. Ouiser (Shirley Maclaine) is a bitter divorcee, while Truvy (Dolly Parton) is the sexy, sassy hairdresser. Finally, in ‘Erin Brockovich’ (2000), Roberts plays the brassy, unemployed, twice-divorced single mother. When she is injured in a motor accident and her lawyer, Ed Masry (Albert Finney), fails to win her any compensation, her solution is to insist that Ed provides recompense by employing her at his firm. Erin’s new colleagues do not take her seriously at first, but when she discovers a cover-up by a water company who have been poisoning the local community, she and Ed set out to win the victims a multi-million settlement.