Author Archives: admin

Ferrari Across The Mersey.

 

Every Traffic -light has a Grand Prix start

For Boy racers in their testosterone fuelled cars

Every pedestrian is legitimate target to mow down

Score extra points for cyclists, dogs, and older people to

Students taking selfies glued to their mobile phones

Don’t hear you coming at them from front or behind

If I miss them, I’ll get them next time

Blood on asphalt Mad Max on the Redline

Auto erotic Car Crash TV

Vanishing point, Two lane Blacktop

John Carpenter’s Christine

Thelma and Louise drive over the precipice

Ferrari Across The Mersey. full post

(126 words, estimated 30 secs reading time)

Blancmange, Wanderlust. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Even in the act of the upbeat and positively engaging, there is always the beauty of the sudden and dramatic turn which leads the voyeur of art to appreciate the darker aspects of the performer’s work, an undertaking in which the sculpted metaphor of rhythm and rhyme cultivates a need to express itself in a way that is strangely familiar, but at the same time different, an altered perception of the reality that many would have been used to.

Blancmange, Wanderlust. Album Review. full post

(417 words, 1 image, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Rosa. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, Vinette Robinson, Joshua Bowman, Trevor White, Richard Lothian, Jessica Claire Preddy, Gareth Marks, David Rubin, Ray Sesay, Aki Omoshaybi, David Dukas, Morgan Deare.

Doctor Who has arguably never been better than when it deals with the issues of our own history, for all the aliens that crowd and jostle for the audience’s attention, for all the elements of science fiction that is associated with the writing, it is to Earth’s history in which the programme excels. For what else can an alien traveller do but show us how at times, we as a species, are as alien to each other by our actions and deeds, our thoughts and the ugly side of our personalities?

Doctor Who: Rosa. Television Review. full post

(570 words, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

Ace Frehley, Spaceman. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

At some point, we have all perhaps looked up at the seemingly cold stars and wished that we could visit the strange, alien worlds that circle the long distant suns, that we could all be pioneers in the dark void that separates us from the rest of the Universe. For many of us we can never say our occupation is being an astronaut, but for those of us who will never see the raw, unfiltered light of our own Sun as it hangs in space, at least Ace Frehley will always be considered amongst the pinnacle of those who can say, I am the Spaceman.

Ace Frehley, Spaceman. Album Review. full post

(501 words, 1 image, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Troilus & Cressida, Theatre Review. R.S.C., Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Gavin Fowler, Amber James, Oliver Ford Davis, Adjoa Andoh, Andy Apollo, James Cooney, Suzanne Bertish, Jim Hooper, Theo Ogundipe, Daniel Burke, Sheila Reid, Andrew Langtree, Amanda Harris, Daniel Hawksford, Geoffrey Lumb, Daisy Badger, Charlotte Arrowsmith, Ewart James Walters, Leigh Quinn, Mikhail Sen, Gabby Wong, Helen Grady, Esther McAuley, Nicole Agada.

Advertised as Shakespeare meets Mad Max, this production of Troilus & Cressida by the Royal Shakespeare Company brings together more traditionally garbed Trojans with motorcycle riding, metallic Greeks, accentuating what is described in the programme notes as a play that embraces contradictions, rather than flattening them.

Troilus & Cressida, Theatre Review. R.S.C., Stratford-Upon-Avon. full post

(382 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Winter’s End (No Sign Of Spring).

 

It is the long day before,

the cruel winter of bare tree thought

has plagued me since

the start of September’s fallen

and I find my reasoning

has deserted me, the fear

of your constant rejection

moulding me into the man I am.

The soulless winter

in my life, you

couldn’t touch the spring in which

you rallied against,

you ignored me,

I found it was easier

to live without you

and I told you such

when my old Queen died.

Winter’s End (No Sign Of Spring). full post

(121 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)

Level 42, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. (2018).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It would be easy to give the phrase “There is something about them“ a gentle autumn-clean and present it as if it was the most novel expression coined about Level 42, however despite the wording being over used, it remains a factor of the subtly, the complexity and delivery of the band’s music that makes it a truth always worth pursuing and being entrusted with spreading the word about.

Level 42, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. (2018). full post

(401 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

The Blow Monkeys, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

All good memories fade eventually, perhaps not disappearing forever, never completely out of grasp, but they do fade, they might lose their lustre, the moment when you declared a love forever lost to age, responsibility and the unknowing regret of not designed neglect, that is life, a passion for the always in your sight, replaced by the allure of other more tangible and currently immediate passions.

The Blow Monkeys, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(538 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Sherlock Holmes: The Sign Of Four, Theatre Review. Atkinson Theatre, Southport.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Luke Barton, Joseph Derrington, Stephanie Rutherford, Christopher Glover, Ru Hamilton, Zach Lee.

The parallels between our modern world and that of the dying days of the Victorian Era are not really so different for all the talk of enlightened sensibilities, of understanding the way we treat others and the hope of better interaction. Yet still the undercurrent of violence, of greed, and murder dominates our society with a stunning regularity, a world shrouded in fog, of questions, of a fractured system that sees half the country fearful of ‘the other’, of quick judgement and hanging on to a belief that we somehow have a right to deny another man or woman to believe they can be welcome in our country.

Sherlock Holmes: The Sign Of Four, Theatre Review. Atkinson Theatre, Southport. full post

(599 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

First Man. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Claire Foy, Ryan Gosling, Pablo Schreiber, Christopher Abbott, Ethan Embry, Ciaran Hinds, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Shea Whigham, Patrick Fugit, Lukas Haas, Corey Michael Smith, Brady Smith, Olivia Hamilton, John David Whalen, Leon Bridges.

If a film’s aim is to educate and inform, to make an audience appreciate the life and actions of the subject at hand, then Damien Chazelle’s in depth, almost microscopic, look at the life of Neil Armstrong, of the lead up to moment when he became the first human to take a tentative step on the surface of the Moon, the trials, the agony, the heartache that spurred him on, then First Man would be rightly considered to one of the most endearing and enduring of epics.

First Man. Film Review. full post

(497 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)