Tag Archives: Simon Farnaby

Ghosts. Christmas Special 2023. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Lolly Adefope, Matthew Bayton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Neil Edmond, Dare Emmanuel, Sutara Gayle, Neriah Johnson.

All good things must end.

Ghosts. Series Five. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast:  Lolly Adefope, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Ben Willbond, Yani Xander, Nathan Bryon, Geoffrey McGivern, Emma Sidi, Richard Durden, Peter Sandys-Clarke, Rufus Wright, Anna Crilly.

Endings must always be acknowledged for the emotions they unearth from within your soul.

We can sit back and cradle our heads in our hands and lament a passing, or we can smile at the thought of having had the fortune to be included in the moment, to share the time with what proves to be an inspirational piece of art and be part of something that caught our attention enough to have us wallow in its performance.

Ghosts: It’s Behind You. Christmas Special 2022. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Lolly Adefope, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond.

Making plans and celebrating special occasions is a staple of humanity’s need for order, and Christmas is perhaps the time when those plans, carefully drawn to the minute with military like precision, are likely to come apart at the seams, fraying at the edge, causing upset and damage to the one so immersed in believing that to be perfect is the least that is acceptable.

Ghosts: Series Four. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Lolly Adefope, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Ben Willbond, Katy Wix, Yani Xander, Nathan Bryon, Geoffrey McGivern, Bridget Christie, Michael Fenton Stevens, Nisha Aaliya, William Andrews, Gina Fillingham, Aaron Collict, Richard Glover, Declan Baxter, Atilla Ainci, Eleanor Holzer, Dan King, Alistair Green, Toby Longworth, Skye Leheup, Caroline Sheen, Andrew Spooner.

Ghosts: Christmas Special. (2021). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Jim Howick, Martha Howe-Douglas, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Lolly Adefope, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willibond, Katy Wix, Jennifer Saunders, Justin Edwards, Keeran Blessie, Richard Dixon, Andrew Francis, Jeremy Limb, Marcus Onilude, Chrostopher Villiers.

The message of Christmas gets lost, swamped by the greed of consumerism, by the heady ringing of tills and the message from political elites that you may as well as celebrate now because come the New Year life is about to get real, is about to see you become nostalgic for the 24 hours you try to make perfect.

Ghosts (Series Three). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Lolly Adefope, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurance Rickard, Ben Willbond, Katy Wix, Geoff McGivern, Jessica Knappett.

Uproariously silly, who knew that being a ghost could do so much for your sense of humour, who could have realised that being able to see the dead would give your spirits a rise. For three series in to become one of the great British comedies of the last decade, up there with the intricate mayhem provided by The Goes Wrong Show, Not Going Out and Vicious, Ghosts is the joy provided by a set of writers who understand that with a great gag must come pathos, that truth is born out of farce, and these sterling qualities have the obligation to be captured by actors to whom timing and sympathy to the character is an absolute commitment.

Ghosts. 2020 Christmas Special. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Lolly Adefope, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Katy Wix, Sutara Gayle, Leon Herbert, Samantha Pearl, Timmika Ramsey.

There is a train of thought that the Christmas special of any comedy is meant to be one that goes even further to provide the laughter that we need to put us in the festive mood; like a drug it is there to warp our perception of what the season is actually for, that to be jolly and full of happiness that it makes the year’s end a giddy affair, one of unashamed and continuous enjoyment, that makes the dark evenings one of absolute light.

Ghosts. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Martha Howe-Douglas, Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Lolly Adefope, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Katy Wix, Yani Xander, Jim Howick, Richard Durden, Ed Kear, Ania Marson, Anya McKenna-Bruce, Steve Oram, Tom Mackley, Paul Cawley, Peter Coe, Caoilfhionn Dunne, Caroline Guthrie, Geoffrey McGivern, Tim Plester, Sophie Thompson, Richard Thomson, Angela Yeoh, Simon Bubb, Rosie Cavaliero, Florian Schwienbacher, Simon Stache.

Christopher Robin. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Oliver Ford Davies, Ronke Adekoluejo, Adrian Scarborough, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ken Nwosu, John Dagleish, Amanda Lawrence, Katy Carmichael, Orton O’ Brien, Tristan Sturrock, Jasmine-Simone Charles, Paul Chahidi, Simon Farnaby, Mackenzie Crook, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Nick Mohammed, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Okonedo, Sara Sheen, Toby Jones.

It is, with hindsight, easy to suggest that humanity in the 20th Century lost its way, that we as a collected species lost our wonder and our innocence to a new way of thinking, a rational that arguably had its genesis in the self-imposed, stiff upper lipped facade philosophy created by the Victorians and to which even now has eaten away at our ability to forget the dreams we had as children and the wondrous stories we could weave.

Paddington 2. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Noah Taylor, Peter Capaldi, Brendon Gleeson, Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins, Ben Miller, Tom Conti, Meera Syal, Samuel Joslin, Madeline Harris, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Simon Farnaby, Jessica Hynes, Richard Ayoade, Tom Davies, Cal McCrystal.

It is through the eyes of the innocent that we perhaps see beauty and good in the world, that we don’t just tolerate the storms and the fire that surround us but that we embrace it, we seek out the violence not to get a thrill from the fight but to hopefully offer a solution, a kind word spoken can make the difference in a day and in a person’s life.