Author Archives: admin

Our World War, Television Review. B.B.C.

Cast: Theo Barkham-Biggs, Callum Callaghan, Justin Michael Deuster, Brian Ferguson, Jefferson Hall, Daniel Kendrick, Stephen Leask, Dominic Thorburn, Frankie Wilson, Sion Young.

 

The trouble with being taught history at school is along the way it loses so many young minds to the way of the bored or disinterested. For many it is the sheer weight of facts to remember, perhaps the subject matter doesn’t grab the mind or imagination, for some they just cannot see the relevance to the our society today. That may be argued as understandable when looking at the lives of The Tudors or the Georgian society unless of course you are the type of person who is absorbed by all history, social, economic and personal. When it comes to the events that took the world on a course of destruction a 100 years ago, the relevance is palpable, you can almost hear the beating, thumping heart of your great-grandparents and their breathe clinging to the air around you as history is still so close and so real to many.

Our World War, Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(632 words, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)

God’s Pocket, Film Review. Picturehouse @F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christina Hendricks, Eddie Marsan, John Turturro, Richard Jenkins, Caleb Landry Jones, Jack O’ Connell, Bill Buell, Rebecca King, David Apicella, Bridget Barkan, Michael Drayer, Prudence Wright Holmes, Eddie McGee, Molly Price, Domenick Lombardozzi, Glenn Fleshler, Joseph Reiver, Arthur French, Dave Powers, Morgan Auld, Jonathan Gordon, Matthew Lawler, Joyce Van Patten, Danny Mastrogiorgio, Sophia Takal

 

All it would have taken is the velvet tones of Richard Burton to have been heard at the start of Philip Seymour’s penultimate film and what the audience would have realised was how encouragingly in the vein of Dylan Thomas screenwriter Alex Metcalf and John Slattery had made Peter Dexter’s novel God’s Pocket.

God’s Pocket, Film Review. Picturehouse @F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

Kobra and The Lotus, High Priestess. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is nothing quite like being disclosed the name of a new band to your mental collection and finding out just how good they sound and wondering just how come you haven’t heard of them before. The world is a huge place, you can never hear everything, the simple act of breathing quietly in a darkened room often gets in the way of that, however when the name conveyed of Kobra and the Lotus and their new album High Priestess appears out in soft spoken but hurriedly excited tones, all you can do is listen and then exclaim unashamedly loud that they join fellow Canadian’s No Sinner as being two of the great bands of the era from that large expansive country.

Kobra and The Lotus, High Priestess. Album Review. full post

(441 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Music For Voyeurs, The Curtain Are Opening. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If there is something that binds us all at some point in our lives, it is the feeling of the fractured nature of society, the self, or our place within the two. The distressed nightmare that few will ever admit to for fear of seeming weak when in truth they are the most courageous of all, for they at least admit that life at times is nothing more than a cosmic joke played out on a poker table that has been tilted and stacked against their favour.

Music For Voyeurs, The Curtain Are Opening. Album Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Arms & Hearts, Tried And Tested. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8 1/2/10

You can try and avoid life by throwing yourself head first under the nearest boulder and staying there till the shadows lengthen, humanity inevitably destroys itself and blue skinned flesh eating Morlocks roam the English countryside sipping out of date gin and serenading each other with Justin Bieber compilation albums, such is the path well travelled when you ignore life.

Arms & Hearts, Tried And Tested. E.P. Review. full post

(369 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate, Game Review. PS4, PS VIta

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is a twin-stick shooter game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4 and PS Vita. Double Eleven have brought PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate to the PS4 and PlayStation Vita; you have most likely heard of Double Eleven as they have a great pedigree of their own with such great games as LIMBO, PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate HD, Frozen Synapse Tactics and most notably of all Little Big Planet PS Vita.

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate, Game Review. PS4, PS VIta full post

(3970 words, estimated 15:53 mins reading time)

A Dance In The February Sun.

(For Stephanie Kerr.)

You danced for me, although I never asked you too.

I still think that afternoon was extraordinary and made

our friendship what it is today, built on a foundation

of responsibility of thirty years rather than destroyed

in half a minute as I bumbled around,

fumbled, stupid boy like attempt to ask you out and to dance

for a month or two.

You have known suffering, ordeals in which

I can now only offer a long distance shoulder

but one that has always been there and as we were both outsiders

A Dance In The February Sun. full post

(288 words, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

Sons Of The Delta, Tasty Nuggets. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It is hard to really knock The Blues, especially when you discover the lip smacking delights of Sons of the Delta and their latest album Tasty Nuggets.

Mark Cole, Rick Edwards, Martin Fitzgibbon and Lyndon Webb have tapped into something incredible, something in which should be nurtured. A sweeping sensitivity of great highs and joyous tantalising lows, the guitar not just an instrument in which to play with but alongside some rather terrific vocals and brilliantly placed lyrics, becomes as heavenly as an angel that has discovered the delights of a quality beer. The anguish of loving both the sun and the rain in equal measure and straining its ear against the headphones of the person its fallen head over heels in love with.

Sons Of The Delta, Tasty Nuggets. Album Review. full post

(421 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Arrow, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

It seems strange in a way to read a graphic novel that is based on a highly rated television programme that in itself is based upon one of D.C Comics greatest publications and whose central character turned up from time to time in the American programme about Superman’s early life, Smallville. Go back far enough with this idea and the chicken-egg scenario will admit defeat and leave the comedy circuit and go back to the poultry farm to relative ignominy.

Arrow, Graphic Novel Review. full post

(430 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Annie Get Your Gun, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Jason Donovan, Emma Williams, Norman Pace, Dermot Canavan, Ed Currie, Kara Lane, Yiftach Mizrahi, William Oxborrow, Lorna Want, Ste Clough, Matthew Dale, Natalie Day, Floe Fields, Sarah Galbraith, Jonny Godbold, Hannah Grace, Katie Marie-Carter, George Parry.

There is no business like show business…even when sometimes during a performance, for whatever reason, the tension in the actor’s voices, the verve and command of the piece feels a little flat, there is still nothing quite listening to an audiences reaction before the star of the show says a word and the adulation given at the end of the musical.

Annie Get Your Gun, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)