Monthly Archives: April 2014

Special Measures, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Eithne Browne, Paul Broughton, Stephen Fletcher, Jessica Guise, Colin Hoult, Adam Search, Angela Simms, Michael Starke.

St Jude’s Primary School has been placed into Special Measures, the universal, one size fits all term, to denote that somewhere something is not right with the system.

When Tory M.P. Thomas Winters feels the wrath of the P.M.s anger at being hit by a croquet mallet in a particularly painful constituency, he is dispatched to tick the right sort of boxes in a North of England school and make amends. The fall out, the so called oppressed kicking downwards is not new but for the Head Master and staff of St. Jude’s the fall of basic humility and understanding looking them in the eyes is one that is too much to bear.

Special Measures, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(499 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

The New Line, Can’t Hold The Wheel. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Not everything in life needs to be shouted, screamed at the pace of a jet fighter roaring over an oil field with soldiers protecting the peace underneath or the rush and exhilaration of a football championship decider. Not everything needs the roar, sometimes the quietest word can grip hold of life more eloquently than the damnation of a thousand rhetoric speeches of hate can ever achieve.

The New Line, Can’t Hold The Wheel. Album Review. full post

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

Robert Cray, In My Soul. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The healthy resonance of a guitar is sometimes the only sound you need to hear to understand in how every instant the world can be both beautiful and devastatingly sad at the same time. For Robert Cray that singular echo coming through the airwaves is one that haunts, chills and pleases from opening track till the time when The C.D. has been placed regretfully back onto the rack. His latest album In My Soul is no different.

Robert Cray, In My Soul. Album Review. full post

(349 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

Desert, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Giles Roberts, Lucy Farrett.

One of the advantages theatre has over other forms of media is its ability to be intimate, to bring the innermost thoughts and feelings of an individual in front of your face and force you to confront them. The Molino Group does exactly that with Desert, the story of Private Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, a soldier in the U.S. Army who leaked footage on Wikileaks of what is often referred to as “Collateral Murder”, and consequently, today is serving 35 years in prison.

Desert, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Sin City: That Yellow Bastard, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

In the Robert Rodriguez 2005 film Sin City, one of the more interesting set of stories weaved together was that of Nancy Callaghan, Detective Hartigan and one of the beasts that haunts Basin City like a Japanese knotweed being cultivated by perverted and foul paedophile, the obscene Roark Junior. Sin City: That Yellow Bastard follows that story neatly from start to finish and it is arguably the best story in the entire series because of it.

Sin City: That Yellow Bastard, Graphic Novel Review. full post

(490 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

The Events, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Clifford Samuel, Amanda Drew, Magnus Gillijam, Up For Arts Choir.

All events lead to somewhere. The unseen random strands dissecting, passing along easily in infinite possibilities and unhindered, until they converge, they smash together in such an explosion of such reverberation and repercussions that could be felt for years after. The Events are how we deal with the unfolding drama and how we choose to live with the aftermath.

The Events, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Small Change.

Spare some change, alright thank you. Spare some change Sir. Yeah right of course you have, completely out, you say that every day! Just speak into this you say? Yes I’m homeless, it wasn’t my fault, I probably didn’t help myself that’s true enough but in a world where it has become…acceptable to look down upon someone lower than yourself for fear of being spat upon as well, for the dread that sits inside you that you might find yourself being pissed upon by a Friday night reveller, the party goer who finds the inside of the entry the perfect place in which to let go of their hard earned cash and curry mixed with vodka, that dread is only ever three pay days away and unless you are lucky, I mean really lucky, then the spiral goes on and on until one day you manage to find a mirror and you wonder what happened to the girl with dreams.

Small Change. full post

(2143 words, estimated 8:34 mins reading time)

Error In the Margins.

The mistake inside the lines…

Or perhaps more the blunder of birth, the errors between the margins

That are crossed out, erased and deleted with anticipated glee.

Like a master Historian paid by the winner to paint the pretender to the crown

As the Devil incarnate and the cause of all Humanity’s woes.

Any good they may have done assigned to someone else,

The credit of a lifetimes work expunged and made worthless.

The error between the margins, the deviation of the norm

Of the designated mechanical drive that makes the worker Bee

Error In the Margins. full post

(220 words, estimated 53 secs reading time)

Cash ‘Ere.

Waiting for the last finishing
line of the day; what are the odds
that this is a race worth running?
Which one will he be gunning for
at five to four or ten to three.
Unexpectedly, he’ll lean in,
growing shorter; ought to know now
that this counter is not bound by
his starting orders, so I’ll wait
and contemplate a ciggie break.
Did someone say he had a tip?
Because I’ve forgotten mine. —

Ian Miller 2014.

 

Permanent link to this post (80 words, estimated 19 secs reading time)

Endeavour: Nocturne. Television Review. I.T.V.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Jack Laskey, Anton Lesser, Jack Bannon, Abigail Thaw, Desomd Barrit, Lucy Boynton, James Bradshaw, Lynn Farleigh, Diane Fletcher, Nell Tiger Free, Maya Gerber, Imogen Gurney, Daniel Ings, Susy Kane, Simon Kunz Kate Lamb, Shvorne Marks, Eleanor Northcott, Caroline O’ Neill, Ian Peck, Tom Prior, Sean Rigby, Straun Rodger, Michael Shannon, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sara Vickers, Emily Warren.

Endeavour: Nocturne. Television Review. I.T.V. full post

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