The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe is a BBC dramatisation of the second book in the much loved series The Chronicles of Narnia and for me, was the reason I read the books in the first place so its for that reason I hold the program so high up in my memories of my childhood. The screenplay was written by Alan Seymour (based on the book written by the wonderful C.S Lewis) and his influence can easily be seen by looking at his later work on the House of Elliot as he works hard to capture the essence of the time in which it was based and very much succeeds in this.

The acting in the piece is actually quite hard to characterise. As a child, I remember wanting nothing more than to have been one of the kids in the tale and at that point they all seemed quite old to me. Now, they are obviously very young really and while they do an admirable job there will always be the ‘overacting’ problem that happens in many films and TV shows that children have to be cast in. The adult characters however could not have been cast better in my opinion. Undoubtedly stealing the show was Barbara Kellerman’s portrayal of the White Witch. From reading the book the character was always meant to be played with over the top theatrics with the sheer evilness of the character at the very forefront of the dialogue. She manages to carry off the load booming shouts and cries while showing the manipulative and calculating tactics of her bribery of Edmund in fantastic style. Her interaction with the other characters around her is superb and she succeeded in making me feel a little scared of her even now! Michael Aldridge (Seymour in Last of the Summer Wine) is marvellous at showing us the eccentricity of the Professor and a great at showing us how to truly confuse a bunch of kids when they are trying to explain what in there mind, should be utter nonsense!

The DVD itself is actually a bit of a disappointment on two counts. The first is that they really haven’t seemed to put much effort into the digital re-mastering as at various points throughout the DVD the colour is a bit off and is reminiscent of a old and worn video tape. At first I thought this may have just been my copy however a friend of mine has since commented that her copy was the same. There are also practically no extras at all on this which is a shame as I do remember watching some programs as a youngster about how they made the show, the lion etc. They do have a gallery but I have never really seen the point of these to be honest as if you want a picture, you can usually just go online and get one and these are stuck on the DVD so of no other use to you! Other than that though, the menus are straightforward enough and its only a few clicks until you are watching the show.