Tag Archives: Ian McDiarmid

Obi-Wan Kenobi. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Moses Ingram, Vivien Lyre Blair, Hayden Christensen, Rupert Friend, James Earl Jones, Kumail Nanjiani, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Indira Varma, Marisé Álvarez, Maya Erskine, Jimmy Smits, Grant Feely, Flea, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Simone Kessell, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, Liam Neeson.

Ewan McGregor’s time as Obi-Wan Kenobi always seemed short and one that arguably carried, alongside Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine, the prequel trio of films that framed the Star Wars franchise to a place where the maligned nature and often heavy-handed criticism is thankfully overlooked.

Obi-Wan Kenobi. Television Series Review. full post

(466 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

The Lost City Of Z, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Harry Melling, Franco Nero, Ian McDiarmid, Angus Macfadyen, Daniel Huttlestone, Aleksander Joyanovic, Murray Melvin, Edward Ashley, Nicholas Grace, Raquel Arraes, Bobby Smalldridge, Nicholas Agnew, Frank Clem, Michael Ford-Fitzgerald, Johann Myers, Michael Jenn, Frank Cannon, John Sackville, Tom Mulheron, Adam Bellamy, Matthew Sunderland, Stacy Shane, Richard Buck, Siennah Buck, Barnaby Edwards, Brian Matthews Murphy, Bethan Coomber, Andrew McNeill, Tasmin Greene Barker, Michael McLaughlin.

The Lost City Of Z, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(610 words, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Six. Television Review. Channel 4.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Ruth Gemmel, Emilia Jones, Steven Robertson, Sacha Dhawan, Jennifer Hennersey, Emil Hostina, David Calder, Ansu Kabin, Bill Nash, John Voce.

It might take Channel 4 a decade or more to get involved with another story-line as riveting as Utopia has been for the last two series, if it does it will be well worth the wait, for Utopia has been so powerful, so seismic in its delivery that it stands shoulder to shoulder with other titans that went before it, such as Black Mirror and A Very British Coup.             .

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Six. Television Review. Channel 4. full post

(478 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Five. Television Review. Channel 4.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Ruth Gemmel, Emilia Jones, Micah Blfour, Steven Robertson.

When the final curtain is raised or the apocalypse comes, just look for the person who has handed you their hat inside a fast food takeaway and shiver to the very core as they stops serving you, they smile and walk off with nothing more than the destruction of the Human Race in their head. Such is how Utopia will be achieved, not with the burst of an atomic weapon but within the mind of an employee who has just had enough of people asking if they do chocolate milkshakes in the value meal.

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Five. Television Review. Channel 4. full post

(500 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Four. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Ruth Gemmel, Sacha Dhawan, Martin McDougal, Emilia Jones, Sofe Dirisu, Richard Laing.

Could you kill? Could you really think about pulling a trigger and blowing somebody’s head apart from their soul? The world is on the edge of extinction and somebody has a plan in which to save Humanity as a species, many billions will fade out of existence eventually but they will have at least lived, unlike the possible tens of thousands who are to become carriers of disease in which, to some is actually a better prospect than what could come.

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Four. Television Review. full post

(513 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Utopia, Season Two. Episode Three Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Geraldine James, Neil Maskell, Fiona O’Shaughnessy, Adeel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alistair Petrie, Alexandra Roach, Nathen Stewart- Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Kevin Eldon, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Will Attenborough, Allan Corduner, Juliet Cowan, Keith Farnham, Candida Gubbins, Alex Lowe, Bruce Mackinnon, Gerard Monaco, Damien Thomas.

Utopia is never meant to be reached, if it was then Sir Thomas More completely missed the point as he wrote in praise to England before finding himself on the wrong side of a King’s wrath. Dystopia on the other hand is the easiest level of human attainment and for those on the run in Channel 4’s riveting series, Utopia, dystopia might actually be more preferable.

Utopia, Season Two. Episode Three Review. full post

(413 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Utopia. Series Two, Episode Two. Television Review. Channel 4.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 81/2/10

Cast: Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adeel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alistair Petrie, Alexandra Roach, Nathen Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Kevin Eldon, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Alan Cordiner, Pixie Davies, Leemore Morrett Jnr, Diane Morgan.

It is the 21st Century equivalent of throwing yourself out of the window of a tall office block after wiping millions off the value of shares in the United States, the way of suicide compared to the office boredom and placing the stapler over the tongue ready to make sure you feel something, anything, to let the pain remind you are still alive…as Ian asks his colleague, is it possible to actually die of boredom?

Utopia. Series Two, Episode Two. Television Review. Channel 4. full post

(442 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

37 Days, Television Review. B.B.C. 2.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Ian McDiarmid, Nicholas Farrell, Kenneth Cranham, Nicholas Asbury, Mark Lewis Jones, Rainer Sellien, François-Eric Gendron, Bill Paterson, Tim Pigott-Smith, Kate Ambler, Sinéad Cusack, André Kaczmarczyk, Holger Kunkel, James McArdle, Ludger Pistor, Urs Remond, Bernhard Schütz, Stephan Szasz, Niall Cusack, Gordon Fulton, George Lenz, Mary Moulds, Chris Reilly, Rainer Reiners, Patrick Fitzsymons, Ian Beattie, Simon Coury.

37 Days, Television Review. B.B.C. 2. full post

(595 words, estimated 2:23 mins reading time)