I promised myself
no more cold winters
stuck indoors
as I approached the autumn
years of fifty.
I promised with hand on heart,
a vow to my then hopefully older self
that by then, the words would have meant
something more, that the days
would be long and bright,
not sat under a blanket,
with two pairs of socks, a cardigan, long johns on
trying to keep my nose from freezing
and turning blue, choosing
between heating the house and eating a meal,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Winter is upon us, the dark nights have crawled in, the fog of uncertainty has become a more dangerous proposition and the furious and the disenchanted have taken root inside the minds of all who consider scorn and unwarranted cynicism a viable solution to the problems that we face together. It is in that almost unshakable nihilism that the brightness of a single star can be seen as a wonder, that to find a reason to show the sneering and the put down merchants why exactly you should be able to say calmly the words, Made My Peace With You, without stooping to their level.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Christmas means something different to everybody, whether they celebrate it or not, whether it is in the joy of family, togetherness, being with friends, surrounded by strangers but with a common love in which to bond, or in just the thought of a set of songs that grab their attention and make the time of year more thoughtful, reflective, even for some bearable. Music is what binds all when the first drops of snow hit the ground and the carol singers can be found with lamps in hand, a weapon against the darkness of the northern sky.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tori Hargreaves, Nick Langmead, Jamie Greer, Adam McCoy, Helen Carter, Alan Stocks, Ciaran Kellgren, Brandon Incles, Libby Fairhurst, Michael Hall, Shannon McFadden.
There is a monster in all of us, a beast to whom only the love of one person can fight hard enough to quell and set on a course to love and to being the person we wish to be seen as by the rest of the world. To find such a person is sometimes all we can hope for, it is the very essence of our time, to have, to hold, to rip off the mask we have put to keep the hurt at bay.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Bob Towers, Edmund O’ Hare, Teneye Alvarado, Maggi Green, Charlotte Thomas, George Melling, P.J. Murray, Yahya Baggash, Peter Durr.
The song is right, it is the most magical time of the year, one in which we come together to hopefully remember what true message is, one not to be sucked into a world of commercialism, one not to be in the grip of debt, not one to be feel the need to be greedy or over burdened by the selfishness of others. Just one that allows the heart to find forgiveness to others and to yourself, one that in which children and adults alike can find the delight in time together and one which even in the depths of a snow filled scene can lead to a love that might not thought possible.
It is all about introducing children
to the delight of theatre,
thrill them with a funny
but beautiful tale at Christmas
when they are young, and in hope,
you will have them for life.
I was seven before I first saw my first panto,
played out for some reason
on my birthday and with Jimmy Edwards
and Arthur Askey on stage,
Hello playmates and bushy moustached Whacko
transferred from my bedside radio
to the grandness of the Birmingham Hippodrome,
my birthday, I needed to visit the toilet
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Some genres, some bands, just suit the epic perfectly. Place the right set of songs into the setting that befits them and stories can appear in the listener’s minds without even realising it. The grandeur, the history of the piece discussed, the musical offering becomes a blockbuster which goes beyond the heroic and becomes a symphony to the exploits of humanity, the adventures, the sagas.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
We are fascinated, as a society by the macabre, the acts of the Penny Dreadful and the interest in the disturbing and shocking actions of Government, disaster, horror and the pain received. We eat up these visual and aural stories, we soak in them as Lady Bathory would in the blood of her victims, we seek further information about the grizzly and it becomes a conversation piece when news relayed of the passing of someone in a ghoulish or morbid manner; no matter how refined or undaunted by the ghastly we believe we are, there is nothing quite like an Ode To Acts Of Murder, Dystopia and Suicide to get the blood pumping.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It is funny how a nation’s wealth can be calculated, the national output determining just highly thought of a country is. It must be doing well goes the thought, for the economics say it is, and yet what comes scandalously lower down the list is the contentment in our lot, the thought that at one time we were not as tied to the system as we have shamefully become, that we are not nuts and bolts in a bloated capitalist machine.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The world runs on them both, a hidden clock ticking over and over again in our hearts and in the bills we have to pay. Money & Love, you can live without either but the fun of life is somewhat limited, it is incomplete and hardly worth a jot. We even wish that money was not important, that somehow we could be decent human beings and find a way to devise a system that did not reward some and punish others just for the family or circumstance they were born into.