Tag Archives: Neil Maskell

Intergalactic. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Savannah Steyn, Imogen Davies, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Eleanor Tomlinson, Natasha O’Keefe, Diany Samba-Bandza, Parminder Nagra, Samantha Schnitzler, Thomas Turgoose, Craig Parkinson, Oliver Coopersmith, Neil Maskell, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Emily Bruni.

The future for humanity is one still yet to be decided, and whether we make it through the current sets of crises more or less unscathed; whether we take heed of the lessons being taught us as the Earth, our home, screams in pain through our abuse, remains to be seen. Yet still, the golden future could come to pass, there could be silver towers glimmering in the sunlight, we could all be equal under law until we break it, the science fiction utopia could be ours; if we are willing to sacrifice something else that’s precious instead.

Intergalactic. Television Series Review. full post

(507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Strike: Career Of Evil. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Holliday Granger, Andrew Brooke, Ben Crompton, Jessica Gunning, Matt King, Kerr Logan, Killian Scott, Neil Maskell, Kierston Wareing, Fern Deacon, Antonia Kinlay, Nicholas Agnew, Mollie Peacock, Cosima Shaw, Ann Akin, Suzanne Burden, Kirsty Dillon, Ella James, Emmanuella Cole, Archie Wrightman, Paul Butterworth, Joe Johnsey, Michelle Bonnard.

The human mind is such a complex organism that nobody quite understands, despite mountains of published papers and theories, why anyone would contemplate, let alone endeavour to make a career out of doing despicable acts, a vocation of evil.

Strike: Career Of Evil. Television Review. full post

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

Eric, Ernie And Me. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Stephen Tompkinson, Mark Bonnar, Neil Maskell, Rufus Jones, Liz White, Alex Macqueen, Adam James, Katherine Kingsley, Natasha Joseph, Susan Twist, Isobel Middleton, Lisa Jackson, Louis Emerick, Darren Bransford, John Culshaw, Rosalind Halstead.

Who makes a song a popular hit, is it the singer that captures the soaring notes and melancholy beauty or is it the writer who sits alone and stares at a blank piece of paper waiting for inspiration to come knocking, scribbling down a line, scrawling and scoring, the provider of the smash in waiting. It is the chicken and egg question, who makes who the success?

Eric, Ernie And Me. Television Review. full post

(558 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, Aiden Gillen, Freddie Fox, Craig McGinlay, Tom Wu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Neil Maskell, Annabelle Wallis, Geoff Bell, Bleu Landau, Jacqui Ainsley, Georgina Campbell, Rob Knighton, Michael Hadley, David Beckham, Katie McGrath, Peter Ferdinando, Michael McElhatton, Mikael Persbrandt.

 

Legends come from stories long since handed down and embellished, made uncertain and then allowed to fade into the darkness of our collective memories, such is the fate of us all and without proof, who is to say that you also won’t become a myth.

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword. Film Review. full post

(631 words, estimated 2:31 mins reading time)

High Rise, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast; Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, Keeley Hawes, Dan Renton Skinner, Sienna Guillory, Enzo Cilenti, Peter Ferdinando, Reece Shearsmith, Augustus Prew, Stacy Martin, Leila Mimmack, Tony Way, Neil Maskell, Alexandra Weaver, Emilia Jones, Victoria Wicks, Bill Paterson, Dylan Edwards, Toby Williams, Eileen Davies, Maggie Cronin.

Brutal and dark, deeply disturbing and a tremendously excellent film, it seems strange then in that case that it has taken the best part of four decades to get J.G. Ballard’s High Rise to the screen but then it would not have had arguably the best actor for the role of the slowly mentally disintegrating Dr. Robert Laing in Tom Hiddleston.

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

(563 words, estimated 2:15 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)