Good news for the largely Belfast-based HBO production Game of Thrones as its impressively gory fourth series has become the fastest-selling DVD in the UK charts for more than a decade.

The combination of internet piracy and official on-demand platforms clearly hasn’t destroyed sales of physical entertainment just yet: the fourth series shifted 157,000 copies in the UK market last week for the highest first-week sales tally of any DVD since 2004.

London premiere

The fifth season of the show, adapted from the books by George RR Martin, will premiere at the Tower of London next month ahead of an April broadcast on HBO and its friends in Sky Atlantic, while in an unusual move for US television, a sixth season has already been commissioned.

In the meantime, anyone in the mood to catch up on events in the War of the Five Kings might be interested to know about some of the DVD extras with the fourth series. They include the bluntly titled Bastards of Westeros, a featurette on the status of children born outside marriage in Martin's fantasy land, and The Fallen: A Round Table, in which no fewer than seven regular cast members – including one of its many Irish stars – discuss how they were viciously killed off during the fourth season, or met their glorious comeuppance, as the case may be.