Mann'S Best Friends: The Complete Series (1985) (DVD)

Penned by Last of the Summer Wine creator Roy Clarke, Mann's Best Friends stars Barry Stanton as the inheritor of a rambling old house along with its menagerie of strange animals... and even stranger humans! Also starring the scourge of HMP Slade, Fulton MacKay, with fellow Porridge veteran Patricia Brake, BAFTA winner Liz Smith and Carry On stalwart Bernard Bresslaw, this delightfully offbeat sitcom is made available here for the first time. When Henry Mann inherits The Laurels he also inherits its assorted resident oddballs, who include ill-tempered alcoholic Duncan, blonde temptress Dolly Delights and several Chinese waiters. Then comes the arrival of retired Water Board official Hamish James Ordway, a nosey parker and colossal fusspot with a flair for what he euphemistically calls 'organisation' - and Mann offers him free accommodation at The Laurels in returning for straightening out the chaos prevailing within...