Tag Archives: Steve Pemberton

Worzel Gummidge: Saucy Nancy. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mackenzie Crook, Shirley Henderson, Vanessa Redgrave, Rosie Cavaliero, Steve Pemberton, India Brown, Warrick Brownlow-Pike, Thierry Wickens, Spencer Jones, Brian Blessed, The Unthanks, Daniel Copeland, Youssef Kerkour, Denise Mack, Francesca Mills, Christopher Patrick Nolan, Daniel Page, Jason Pennycooke, Tim Plester.

What was once lost, can often be returned to where it is needed, as long as people are willing enough to care about history and nature.

Worzel Gummidge: Saucy Nancy. Television Review. full post

(438 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Killing Eve: Series Three. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Comer, Sandra Oh, Fiona Shaw, Kim Bodnia, Owen McDonnell, Harriet Walter, Danny Sapani, Turlough Convery, Gemma Whelan, Steve Pemberton, Raj Bajaj, Alexandra Roach, Sean Delaney.

As inevitable as it was for a third offering of Killing Eve to be commissioned, especially with the cliff-hanger that preceding series left the viewers confronting their emotional response to Villanelle’s destruction of Sandra Oh’s titular character, there seems to be a moment in which you can foresee the story-lines embracing the world of the absurd, of creating havoc for havoc’s sake and treating the agent of chaos as nothing more than that of embracing titillation.

Killing Eve: Series Three. Television Review. full post

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

Inside No. 9: The Stakeout. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Rebecca Callard, Malik Ibheis.

Even in the more cerebrally minded television programmes and across the writer’s who offer the viewer a healthy dose of the macabre and genius inspired, you sometimes know what is coming at you from the beginning, it is how they turn the screw during the transmission that makes the show stand out as something more than just a half hour trip down a certain lane, it becomes the embodiment of performance, of the ordinary bent out of shape.

Inside No. 9: The Stakeout. Television Review. full post

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

Inside No.9: Misdirection. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Jill Halfpenny, Fionn Whitehead, Tom Goodman-Hill.

A sleight of hand always captivates the audience, their faces caught somewhere between incredulity and amazement, the wonder of how the penny drops as they conclude how the trick was conducted right in front of them, whilst all the time believing they could not be caught out, that they were alert to every possibility that could occur.

Inside No.9: Misdirection. Television Review. full post

(380 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Inside No. 9: Love’s Great Adventure. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Debbie Rush, Gaby French, Bobby Schofield, Olly Hudson-Croker.

The secret kept behind closed doors is the one that can either bring a family together, or break it, completely fracture it to the point where the joints will never be truly aligned once more. Whilst television normally glorifies in the fall out of such family despair, whilst film praises the pain in family disfunction, what cannot be argued with is how resilience and love can make for a finer interpretation of what family means, that even in the darkest moment, Love’s Great Adventure is there to prove that drama is only a side show to a truth of expression that is forgiveness and battling the enemies at the gate together.

Inside No. 9: Love’s Great Adventure. Television Review. full post

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

Inside No.9: Death Be Not Proud. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Jenna Coleman, Kadiff Kirwan.

It is not always about who we let into our lives that should be of a concern, it ought to be those we refuse to let go of that would surely be the most troubling; the presence in the room that we cannot somehow live without, such is the fear of letting go that occasionally we find troubled souls and the homes they have made, are nothing more than shrines to ones to whom that refuse to leave.

Inside No.9: Death Be Not Proud. Television Review. full post

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

Inside No.9, The Referee’s A…. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, David Morrissey, Ralf Little, Steve Speirs, Dipo Ola.

Football may have changed to the point where many who filled the terraces after they came back from the battlefields of Europe, who stood on the side-lines as attendances dropped alarmingly as the spectre and disgrace of hooliganism ravaged the sport would now not recognise how much it has altered and boomed. However, one thing perhaps remains constant, and in amongst the wall to wall coverage, the upmarket cuisine that replaced the half time pies, sugar laden teas and copious amounts of Bovril; the roar of the crowd that declares that The Referee’s A…. (insert term of abuse of choice) has never left the game.

Inside No.9, The Referee’s A…. Television Review. full post

(422 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Worzel Gummidge: The Scarecrow Of Scatterbrook Farm. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mackenzie Crook, Steve Pemberton, Rosie Cavaliero, India Brown, Thierry Wickens, Vicki Pepperdine, Ben Langley, Mariam Haque, Tom Meeten, Francesca Mills, Tim Plester, Phil Hulford, Andrew James Spooner, Kiran Shah, Charlie Mayhew. 

To step into the shoes of the late, great, Jon Pertwee is surely a daunting task to which few would entertain, let alone actually attempt; and yet in the guise of one of the actor’s most famous parts, that of Worzel Gummidge, Mackenzie Crook not only captures the essence of the children’s television favourite, he brings the much loved scarecrow into the modern age, one that is steeped in a reflection of the need to bring nature much closer to the generations who have grown up within the boundary of concrete and tarmac, and the concern over climate change and human-made pollution has wrecked upon the planet.

Worzel Gummidge: The Scarecrow Of Scatterbrook Farm. Television Review. full post

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

Inside No.9: Dead Line. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Stephanie Cole.

When the joke is on the viewer, then anarchy is to be praised, the realm of the perpetual joker is considered greener, for if you can fool an audience into believing a certain path is being undertaken and then leaving them exasperated at the television station’s apparent lack of care for what was billed as the big Halloween spectacle, a piece of television that was to be delivered in the toughest arena of all, the live performance.

Inside No.9: Dead Line. Television Review. full post

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

Inside No 9: Tempting Fate. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Weruche Opia, Steve Pemberton, Reece Sheersmith, Nigel Planner, Ruben Cryer.

Be careful what you wish for, for in every deed in which you desire something, whether it is for the benefit of humanity or your own selfish longings, Tempting Fate can be the hardest of acts in which a person can bring the wrath of otherworldly beasts in which have no understanding or control.

Inside No 9: Tempting Fate. Television Review. full post

(374 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)