Repeat after me,
you are only a miserable sod.
It was words that I knew to be false,
miserable,
unhappy perhaps, certainly cheerless
in some cases, wretched,
low, as overcast as leaden sky
and the darkness of a thunderstorm
waiting to rage…
but even in that thunderstorm
must come surely
lightning, the illumination
of a flood of ideas, the mania
of hopeful praise and the sense
that the brief encounter
with electric vibration may last
long enough to kick start the heart
Doctor, never mind Fay Wray,
she will always be remembered
at least for being
instrumental in the death
of King Kong, animatronics
and the sense of colossal, the beast
dying at the hands of beauty
and pre war scream queen,
everybody will remember Fay Wray, Doctor,
because of you, but who remembers
poor old Lewis Wilson,
Adam West
considered by many to be the first
on screen, they forget you Lewis,
black and white hero in black
and white tuxedo and a cowl
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is surely to be considered a sense of understanding that artists of any creed or background are shaped not only by what they see happen in the day, the wave crashing against the reluctant rock; the anarchy in someone’s eyes when they pay for an item in the shop in pennies. They are shaped by their environment, they inhabit the rock that is pounded by the wave and feel the small myriad of tiny creatures that scurry in the pools formed, they are the penny dropped with sarcasm into the palm of a harassed shop worker; in their vision they see the Coast and the till as one.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The Illegal Eagles, Liverpool Empire Theatre, June 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
There are times in life when you cry over a fallen hero, a family member who did something pretty amazing with their life or was just selfless in making sure that yours was not shrouded in pity and the bleak, a conqueror of the stage who you saw perform without mercy and who never knew you were there in shadows being moved by the simple raised eyebrow or the manner of their walk, the musician to whom The Long Road out of Eden was not just lived but taken to heart; it is O.K. to cry over a fallen hero, for it shows the effect they had on shaping your life.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
If you dream, make sure it is every colour available, don’t settle for black and white and don’t let anything but a magical experience take you down in the hands of Morpheus willingly or without a fight, to dream is to be thankful, to Dream Dream well that is a case of allowing the brain to undergo some sort of state where metamorphosis reigns supreme.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, Anthony Calf, Ferdinand Kingsley, Richard Ashton, Adele Lynch, Glenn Spears, Ian Beatie, Bayo Gbadamosi, Ian Hughes, Lesley Ewen, Ysanne Churchman.
The road to Empire, as the American band Eagles once sang, is a bloody stupid waste, yet almost country in Europe has hand in its senselessness and shame and there are a few notable countries around the world that still would find the appetite to bring back what should be a dead and buried black mark around humanity’s history.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *
Cast: Denise Gough, Tom Hughes, Owen McDonnell, Siobhan Cullen, Sean McGinley, Aoibhinn McGinnity, Jane Brennan, Emily Taaffe, Ameilia Metcalfe, Jonny Holden, Edward MacLiam, Ciarán McMenamin, Aislin McGuckin, David Herlihy, Rachael Dowling, Marty Maguire, Dylan Breen, Gary Liburn, David Pearse.
It is infuriating when a drama on television cannot decide if it is one thing or another, especially when in theory the premise of the story is not bad, a light entertainment by the small screen and one willing to find a way to bring a necessary point of view to the adult conversation. Yet in Paula, the makers of the programme managed to make a perfectly good idea somehow unpalatable, degrading and almost thrown straight into the bin where all other nonsense is kept.
There is no room
left in the world
for Spitting Image
to belong back on television;
Westminster
has finally
revealed itself
to be the finest
satirical sketch show
there is,
and with some great
puppets
at the helm.
Ian D. Hall 2017
It is a moment of time that stretches
and is lost forever,
gone are the days
when my name ran readily
off your lips and all I could do
was let you love me, let you protect
me, now
instead the faint whisper down the phone
as my first name is met with silence,
puzzlement, an abandonment
of once proud Feminist teaching;
now…
I am dust…
to you,
forgotten memory slides away,
the smile of a boy
lost
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Alice Bunker-Whitney in Omnibus. Photograph by Brian Roberts.
Cast: Gemma Banks, Alice Bunker-Whitney, Eva McKenna, Joel Parry, Danny Burns, Eithne Browne.
It is always a cause for celebration when a production comes to the stage and truly brings an audience together in its humour and the way it showcases new writing, the positive ways it uses all the actors with equal clarity and the wonderful way in which it shows the genuine appreciation due its Director. When that celebration coincides with the soft re-opening of a much loved theatre after months of renovation and updating, then it is not just a case of bring out the decorations and congratulations, then it is the keen observance and salute that only an Omnibus can provide.