DVD - The Paradise (PG)

If you’re obsessed with Downton, then you’ll no doubt have been consumed by the BBC’s rival drama, The Paradise, but if you missed the sumptuous Victorian series, which ended last month, then why not catch up with it on DVD over the festive period.

Tenacious shop girl, Denise, left her Uncle’s failing business to serve in London’s first department store, where she quickly impresses the handsome owner, Moray, with her forward-thinking sales ideas, ideas that see her fall out of favour with her colleagues and Ladies Wear mistress, Miss Audrey, played to surprisingly stoic perfection by Coronation Street Alumni, Sarah Lancashire (Curley’s wife).

 The well-heeled, Katharine Glendenning is fantastically manipulative villain, as is her father, who’s back-handed business tactics see Moray bound to them in matrimonial and monetary terms.

Secrets, betrayal, unexplained deaths, disappearances and multiple misguided affections threaten to throw Moray’s vision and true love off-course.