Tag Archives: Mark Gatiss

Denial, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, Andrew Scott, Jack Lowden, Caren Pistorius, Alex Jennings, Harriet Walter, Mark Gatiss, John Sessions, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Pip Carter, Jackie Clune, Will Attenborough, Maximilian Befort.

In a time when such things are being questioned, that the extreme right have hijacked once more the very ground of what should be decency and respect and turned into a quagmire of ignorance and sick attitude, Denial is perhaps one of the most sensitive and timely films to come to cinema in recent years.

Denial, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(469 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Sherlock: The Final Problem. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Mark Gatiss, Sian Brooke, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Louise Brealey, Amanda Abbington, Andrew Scott, Art Malik, Timothy Carlton, Wanda Ventham, Simon Kunz, Richard Crehan, Matt Young, Tam Mutu.

Sherlock: The Final Problem. Television Review. full post

(505 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Sherlock Holmes: The Lying Detective. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Mark Gatiss, Amanda Abbington, Louise Brealey, Toby Jones, Lindsay Duncan, Sian Brooke, Asheq Akhtar, Usman Akram, Sharon Cherry Ballard, Miranda Hennessy, Lee Kemp, David Kirkbride, Tom Williams, Chris Wilson.

The rich and powerful can always be counted upon to act how they like, that in cases of responsibility, of holding back and restraint of acts of cruelty, they believe they are untouchable, above the law, both physically and morally; it is how corruption breeds, how money will always look after money and in the end how everybody lies just to keep in line, to toe the official version.

Sherlock Holmes: The Lying Detective. Television Review. full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Sherlock, The Six Thatchers. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Amanda Abbington, Louise Brealey, Sian Brooke, Lindsay Duncan, Mark Gatiss, Rupert Graves, Una Stubbs, Marcia Warren.

It is one way for a television writer to divide an audience and more than half enjoying the spectacle of seeing a former British Prime Minister’s bust of her head smashed to the ground in annoyance and righteous anger and fair play to both Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss for having the courage to be bold in making it a part of the return of Sherlock and its opening episode of series four, The Six Thatchers.

Sherlock, The Six Thatchers. Television Review. full post

(430 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Dad’s Army, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Toby Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bill Nighy, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtney, Mark Gatiss, Blake Harrison, Daniel Mays, Sarah Lancashire, Emily Atack, Ian Lavender, Bill Paterson, Frank Williams, Alison Steadman, Annette Crosby, Holli Dempsey, Martin Savage, Felicity Montague, Oliver Tobias, Julia Foster.

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be but sometimes by revisiting the past you are in danger of completely undermining all the excellent work that once went on before; the package and the idea may look appealing but the beyond the sentimental, the finished article is a pale and perhaps at times, irritating shadow.

Dad’s Army, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(392 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Mark Gatiss, Andrew Scott, Amanda Abbington, Louise Brealey, Jonathan Aris, Tim McInnerny, Natasha O’Keeffe, Yasmine Akram, Taj Smith, Gerald Kyd, Daniel Fearn, Stephanie Hyam, Damian Samuels, Charles Furness, Adam Greaves- Neal, Jessie Hawkes, Dionne Vincent, Kishan Maru, Gavin Lee Lewis, Tim Barlow, David Nellist, Alex Austin.

“It is a war we must lose”, muses Mycroft as he sits with corpulent and greed running through his veins and it seems in every battle there must come a realisation that that the enemy we are fighting is the one that is naturally our ally.

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride. Television Review. full post

(475 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Victor Frankenstein, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Brown Findlay, Andrew Scott, Freddie Fox, Daniel Mays, Spencer Wilding, Callum Turner, Louise Brealey, Charles Dance, Alistair Petrie, Mark Gatiss, Guillaume Delaunay.

All stories have a beginning, some are forged in the deep recesses of the imagination and some are taken to added upon, made more user friendly for a modern audience who might conceive that the birth of a famous monster should have more to it than meets the initial eye. A succession of films have alluded to the question, one successfully so, but it falls to the screen play writer Max Landis to ask the question outright, just who really was the monster in the marvellous Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein?

Victor Frankenstein, Film Review. full post

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

Mapp And Lucia, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast; Miranda Richardson, Anna Chancellor, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, Pippa Haywood, Nicholas Woodeson, Gemma Whelen, Poppy Miller, Felicity Montague, Paul Ritter, Jenny Platt, Susan Porrett, Maxine Roach, Joanna Scanlan, Simon Startin, Harish Patel, Frances Barber, Gavin Broker, Soo Drouet, Andy Godfrey, Sophie Leigh Stone, Peter Mould.

The English and their manners, it is a wonder at times that we haven’t tied ourselves up in knots and caused a type of inner combustion with the subtle one-upman, or indeed in the case of the three part television series Mapp And Lucia, one up-womanship that so leads to conflict with our neighbours and dearest friends. It is possibly the modern etiquette attached to an English Civil War, if we cannot get rid of a Government taking the country apart, lets kick down the social ladder.

Mapp And Lucia, Television Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: Robot Of Sherwood. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Colman, Tom Riley, Ben Miller, Roger Ashton, Ian Hallard, Rusty Goffe, Joseph Kennedy, Adam Jones, Sabrina Bartlett, David Benson, David Langham, Tim Baggaley, Richard Elfyn.

We are but stories in the completion of history’s guide book, some will have volumes written about them, some if they are lucky a rip-roaring novel, most a paragraph, for many just a sentence, however as long as we avoid being a footnote in the end then we should be satisfied.

Doctor Who: Robot Of Sherwood. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(543 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Timeshift: How to Be Sherlock Holmes, The Many Faces Of A Master Detective. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Sherlock Holmes, just his very name is enough to bring a smile of satisfaction to the millions of fans of the science of deduction. Whether in the abundance of stories created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, including the classics The Sign of Four, The Red Headed League and the gothic horror The Hound of The Baskervilles or in the many film adaptations staring such luminaries as Basil Rathbone, Roger Moore, Robert Downey Jr. and Peter Cushing. There have been the very successful early stage production or in the television series’ that has caught the public imagination starring Jeremy Brett or Benedict Cumberbatch, everybody who has ever enjoyed the detective has a point of view on him and the many faces he has worn.

Timeshift: How to Be Sherlock Holmes, The Many Faces Of A Master Detective. Television Review. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)