Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The pursuit of happiness can be all too consuming and too many believe it lays in the hands of consumerism and the ogre of money, it is a vicious cycle which denies those who have the power of expression at their hands to feel slighted by life and understand that it all comes down to how you navigate the maze, how you avoid the beast in the labyrinth that wants to devour every dream you have.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Tamla Kari, Maimie McCoy, Matthew McNulty, Tom Morely, Thalissa Teixeira, Dan Parr, Matt Stokoe, Lily Loveless, Andre Flynn.
If there was one moment to guarantee that The Musketeers would be absolutely missed from the television schedules in the months and years ahead, it was the reappearance of Maimie McCoy’s Milady de Winter, one of the strongest female characters shown on screen in years. Whilst the emergence from out of the shadows of the conniving assassin was brief, tantalising enough to remember just how much input she had in the lives of the garrison and the four musketeers, it was the big picture she was part of which showed just how much this romance between viewer and programme had blossomed.
Too much Oestrogen in my blood,
or a simple matter of genetics;
it is the only way I can explain
the osteoporosis that has lurked in my bones,
stolen my strength,
since I was a teenager and where I had to fight
against prejudice because of my age
and my gender.
Too many times I had to endure
the words that suggested happily
that it was all in my head,
that the disease of black discs
was nothing more than teenage attention…
…so I pushed myself harder, I tore at every fibre
Do you remember those Stadium Daze
A blue cloud of smoke in the purple haze
When the bands played louder than a Jumbo jet
Playing all those songs, I’ll never forget!
When the nights merged into the morning light
Staci with the Hawks , well that’s alright
Dancing to Space Ritual in the centre stage
Nutz as far as can see, where all the Rage!
They played in an Ampi-Theatre of electric sound
In a cauldron of noise , Decibels resound
Phil Lizzy bought the Boys back in town
Careers advice at school,
such a waste of time,
trapped in an office
with someone you had never met before,
like being stuck in a cramped lift
with a murderer looking
at you and wondering which part
to attack first, always settling
on the heart and the head
before dismembering anything
resembling individual thought…
“What do you want to do when you leave school?”,
the question raised over glasses
and hoisted eyebrow, sarcasm elevated
at the ready and the answer of, “Nonsense,
It is easy to say goodbye, you just have to pack whatever it is that you cannot live without and then without looking back, walk out of the door, never slamming it, never displaying anger or rage, and stroll off in to the distance…it is easy to say goodbye in such a way, after all eventually you will be found again and perhaps all the hurt that you felt will have disappeared into the ether, lost in the maelstrom of emotional distress and misplaced resentment.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The last 12 months have been rotten for the arts, too many greats have passed on and left those of us behind with only memories and faded aspirations; this is no so more true as in the bitterest of moments of when a young and decent band is cruelly taken from their place in the section of future heroes and all because of an accident.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Toby Jones, Charlie Hamblett, Vicky McClure, Marie Critchley, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Raphael Acloque, Stephen Graham, Ian Hart, Tom Goodman-Hill, David Dawson, Ash Hunter, George Costigan, Pennie Downie, Selina Boyack, Philip Rosch, Christopher Fairbank, Chris Ryman.
It can only be a good thing that television is prepared at times to look back through the innumerable amount of books and novels from before the second world war, the wealth of words wrapped up in long forgotten dust sheets and only admired by students of English literature. At times, it is good that television does this, for it reminds the multitude that there is such a thing as a story without sensationalism and the need for lust to be shown at every possible moment.
The height of bad boy expression,
fifteen years old and hanging
on the corner, holding your mate’s fag
in one unseen shaking hand
whilst casually sipping
on a can of cheap, devilishly sick
beer, brought from the off licence
as he looked over your shoulder
at every car that went past in case
it was an off duty policeman
ready to nail his arse to the ground
for supplying you with the means of courage
to talk to the girl who was flavour
of the month in your diary,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10
They were the Kings of all they surveyed, the supergroup’s supergroup, along with King Crimson, they could be arguably be seen as the fathers of Progressive Rock and their back catalogue is one that is steeped in the absolute, the pinnacle to which many tried so very hard to match but only a few, Pink Floyd between 73-79, Genesis between Foxtrot and Wind and Wuthering and Supertramp with Crime of the Century and Breakfast and America could equal during the 70s heyday of Progressive Rock.