Shall we visit
Plymouth Rock
and feel the weight of time
eat at our souls, the memories
of patriarchy in silent
judgement looking down
their collected noses,
a decree of continued disappointment
and an unmoving…
…unwavering opinion steeped
in Victorian moral uptight stone;
the Plymouth Rock, not for me
and the ship that carries my worth,
I will land close by,
for a few hours
and then depart, taking my cold
memories with me.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Living legend, in a world that seems to be abundant in such a phrase, an expression of the way we perhaps look at celebrity in this modern age and where at times the word itself becomes obscured by overuse and sometime denigration, to be able to talk to a man who was, and remains, a pivotal figure in British Pop history, is to find that much vaunted idiom a true, humbling and heartening experience.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are few albums that emphasise and capture a moment in British history as well as The Who’s Quadrophenia, a work not just of outstanding cultural reference but a recording that simply blows others in its class away, outstanding lyrics, music that causes the brain to absorb the depths of imagery, and one that just feels every moment of angst for a generation betrayed by growing up in the shadow of the aftermath of World War Two. Of freedom of expression, but not knowing how to harness it enough to overthrow the shackles of post war hypocrisy completely; in short they don’t make them like The Who anymore, and they don’t make albums as raw, as telling, as beautiful as Quadrophenia.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rae, Freddie Fox, Barry Keoghan, Moe Dunford, Sarah Greene, Jim Broadbent, Ciaran Grace, Colm Seoighe, Olivier Biwer, Kieran Boland, Antonia Cambell-Hughes, Dermot Rowley, Diarmuid de Faoite, Fiach Kunz, Joe Lydon, Geraldine McAlinden, Aiden McCardle, Liam McEvoy, Keith McErlean.
In the best traditions of the revenge film genre, Black ’47 must surely sit as a truly incredible example of writing, not only in terms of its absorbing, harrowing storyline but in the judgement it passes on the nature of greed and neglect for our neighbours, our souls and what they are worth when we can idly sit by as people die in the streets as the hunger and cold eats away at their resolve and their lives.
Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * *
Cast: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Rob Riggle, Taran Killam, Romany Malco, Keith David, Loretta Devine, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Yvonne Orji, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Ben Schwartz, Anne Winters, Bresha Webb, Al Madrigal, Jeff Rose, Tilda Del Toro, Fat Joe.
You do have to wonder sometimes about cinema and the film industry when it finds ways to bring out the worst in the genre. It seems to be a problem that continues for the most part with what is loosely termed- American comedy, a sink hole into which its small screen cousin always hits absolute highs, and yet it cannot transfer to the pulling power available to the longer format.
Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * *
Cast: Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer, Fiona Shaw, Kim Bodnia, Sean Delaney, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Owen McDonnell, David Haig, Darren Boyd, Ken Nwosu, Sonia Elliman, David Agranov.
The world of spies and espionage is nothing without its major villain, it is the binding reassurance that the tussle between two equally determined people plays out in front of an audience who always seem to have the appetite for the resource of the cloak and dagger, the thinly veiled appreciation of a war that has enthralled readers and viewers alike for decades.
The revolution you want…
…will never happen, stuck
as we are
in an endless game,
let’s play Risk tonight
you ask, but I counter
with Blind
man’s bluff, or even
solitaire,
to play on in pairs, the group
game has now become impossible,
Risk…too risky to show the side
of the coin you flip,
as it spins and tumbles
in to the crack between
soul and mind, you call tails,
knowing that now the revolution
we deserve, is a game
nobody is prepared to win,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Pete Ashmore, Charlotte Beaumont, Emily Bevan, Bhawna Bhawsar, Susan Bovell, Natasha Cottriall, Keith Dunphy, Karan Gill, Jack Sandle, Ayoola Smart.
The interpretation of what is a universally enjoyed modern classic to the lights and close-up inspection of the theatre can hinge greatly in the eyes of the audience on just how close it gets to the emotions they would expect to be portrayed, of the damage and the reconciliation they feel is appropriate in the modern world.
The Blues, for the longest time, seemed to shrink back in itself, a natural reaction perhaps to being seen as a bloated, out of touch, left behind behemoth that many could not face being played in their company. The fear arguably that it had somehow become a pastiche of itself, too drawn out and like Jazz, an entity of music that wasn’t in keeping with the modern way of the world, the bright future that many believed involved leaving such genres of music behind.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is the memory of soft urgency, the call out to the children at your feet, the young at heart who wait for you to make the final decision concerning the right time and place in which to give you the nod for the adventure ahead. Let’s Go Sunshine, let us heed the words of the informed, the dreamers, the awake and The Kooks, after all, adventure, in any form, is always worth exploring, it is forever worth the intrigue that once was saluted in the very heart of British popular music.