England, My England Simon Callow 2010 DVD Top-quality Free UK shipping

Tony Palmer directs this prize-winning film about the great English composer Henry Purcell. Very little is known about his life, but the script – by Charles Wood and the late John Osborne – solves this problem by launching a group of actors in the 1960s on a voyage of discovery into the 1660s and late-17th century England, the extraordinary period in which Purcell lived. But it is Purcell’s music which is the driving force of the drama, with a stunning soundtrack conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. Features an all-star cast with Simon Callow as Charles, Michael Ball as Henry Purcell, Letitia Dean as Barbara, Nina Young as Mrs Purcell, Corin Redgrave as William III, Lucy Speed as Nell, John Shrapnel as Pepys, Robert Stephens as Dryden, Murray Melvin as Shaftesbury, Terence Rigby as Cooke, Peter Woodthorpe as Kiffen, John Fortune as Clarendon, Edward Michie as young Harry and Bill Kenwright as Bill.