Monthly Archives: July 2014

Monty Python Live (Mostly), Theatre And Cinema Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones.

There will be many who will never get what it was all about but for the multitude, Monty Python followed a natural path that had been laid down by The Frost Report, That Was The Week That Was and The Goons, the ability to send up Britain, the revolution of the way we looked at ourselves as a nation in the post war era and in how we finally were able to put two crafty fingers up to a hierarchy in which didn’t care.

Monty Python Live (Mostly), Theatre And Cinema Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool. full post

(446 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

John Hiatt, The Terms Of My Surrender. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

The Terms of My Surrender, the new album by John Hiatt, is far from a submission, a yielding to an audience that has seen Blues once more become a force in the mainstream, with big thanks in part to the likes of Joe Bonamassa and British female star Joanne Shaw Taylor but it also doesn’t quite hit the big numbers that you almost find yourself willing to hear.

John Hiatt, The Terms Of My Surrender. Album Review. full post

(402 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Gary Edward Jones, The Cabinet Maker. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

You can listen to some people play live and know that the studio will not be as kind too them as what they sound like as they do in the raw, then there a select few that just fill the room with their life, their presence that every single piece of the being comes out and the seemingly random moments just become something so believable, so authentic and discerning that the microphone just wants them to play all night. Such is the emotion that a listener will get when they listen to Gary Edward Jones’ album The Cabinet Maker.

Gary Edward Jones, The Cabinet Maker. Album Review. full post

(398 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

The 286, A Victory for the Battalion 286. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are times when the closest analogy, the biggest compliment you can give a group is to compare it to something from the past.

For the 286 and their E.P A Victory for the Battalion 286, to associate it with a solid piece of music from one of the finest bands from the 1960s should be seen as an honour and whilst the music fits neatly in the Power Pop arena, the E.P. goes beyond that and goes straight into the natural limelight afforded the heavily under rated band The Small Faces and the physical expanse that sits in the album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake.

The 286, A Victory for the Battalion 286. E.P. Review. full post

(399 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Glow Boys, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Shaun Stanley, James Bray.

When Jack comes home carrying a Primark bag, Chris knows that Jack has got something on his mind; that their blossoming relationship, which has just gone through a civil partnership, may be in trouble. Is it another man, the problems of 21st Century living in which all are equal, all struggling along at the bottom due to the actions of Government and the way they have handled certain economic practises or quite simply that the need to express an artistic side, even if it means showing a bit of bottom as a male stripper, is enough for Jack to come home carrying home some exotic clothes.

Glow Boys, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(382 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Room Circus, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Roxanne Male, Jack Taylor-Wood, Natalie Romero.

Bedroom farce has always been a favourite of British audiences; it seeps out of the psyche like a cream doughnut being squeezed teasingly in the playful hands of an artist but with much embarrassed sniggering accompanying it. Bedroom farce is what passes unashamedly as the way to view the British and the habits they employ in the art of love making, lots of innuendo but the frightened reserve of a shell shocked rabbit.

Room Circus, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool full post

(388 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Gearstick, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 81/2/10

Cast: Harriet Wilson, Sophie Smith.

There are just times when you have to congratulate a writer for taking such a logical step that you cannot help but wonder why nobody really has gone there before.

Stuart Crowther’s Gearstick looks at life in which women have been banned, to show femininity a crime, to be born female either sees you destroyed or having a state enforced gender reassignment. Gearstick takes the idea that that too be born a woman is not just seen as second class but an evil in which to be eradicated  and in which if you are a woman who has somehow got passed all the checks can see you hiding your true nature, especially hard when you are a Lesbian.

Gearstick, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

A Party Of Three, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: James Devlin, Stuart Crowther, Andie Egan.

Relationships are complicated, they can blow your mind or they suck the life out of you but what happens when one of the pair has a tendency to kiss someone else just to punish the other, the party is some relationships seems to survive, in others you wonder what they are actually both after.

A Party Of Three, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(334 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.CT., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit McPhee, Kirk Acevedo, Mick Thurstan, Terry Notary, Kero Konoval, Judy Greer, Jon Eyez, Enrique Murciano, Doc Shaw, Lee Ross, Keir O’Donnell, Kevin Rankin, Jocko Sims, Al Vicente, Matt James, Richard King, Scott Lang, Deneen Tyler, Mustafa Harris, Lombardo Boyar, Mike Seal, J.D. Evermore, Chase Boltin, Michael Papajohn, Thomas Rosales, Jr, Carl Sutton, Christopher Berry.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.CT., Liverpool. full post

(517 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Red Butler, Freedom Bound. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Freedom is certainly the overriding emotion that comes through Red Butler’s latest album Freedom Bound, the liberty to do what you want as an when you want to; the only restriction is what your mind tells you is not possible, nor certain.  For the musicians that make up Red Butler though, Alex Butler, the stunning Jane Chloe Pearce, Charlie Simpson and Stephen Eveleigh, certainty goes hand in hand with assuredness of belief that weaves its way through each track on the album.

Red Butler, Freedom Bound. Album Review. full post

(435 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)