In the week that The FACT Centre on Wood Street unveiled its latest exhibition, The Art of Pop video, I was able to meet up with Norwegian musician and photographer Grethe Borsum and spend time with her talking about her new musical venture and her inspired video for the song Apple Picking. The talented and charming woman from Baerum near Oslo came to Liverpool in 2003 and attended L.I.P.A and received a B.A. in Music and Performing Arts.
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For many years Frazer Hines was deeply involved with two major television programmes that grabbed the nation’s attention and made him one of the best known faces throughout the latter part of the 1960s and for a good couple of decades after that. The longevity of an actor within the consciousness of the television viewing habits of the audiences can be seen to rest on the programme they are in. In Fraser Hines’ case being cast as Jamie in Doctor Who under the guidance of Patrick Troughton’s time as the Doctor and then striking gold as the gentle farmer Joe Sugden in the Yorkshire Television soap opera Emmerdale Farm was perhaps the most incredible and fortuitous time for him. As the actor relates though in his autobiography/digital release, Hines Sight, there is so much more to him than wearing a kilt for three years and defeating the Daleks and the Cybermen or enjoying immense popularity as one of Yorkshire’s favourite sons.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
For his third foray into the world of solo albums, Roddy Woomble of Idlewild liberates and musically distances himself from the band that many still suggest was one of the great Scottish acts of the last 20 years and delivers a genuinely astounding wonderful piece of work. Whilst Idlewild may not have released a new album for four years, Roddy has plugged away at creating a sound that whilst indicative of his time as the band’s frontman, doesn’t echo and repeat old glories. Listen To Keep goes that little bit further and plays like a dream.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It wasn’t that long ago that Kate Nash was thought of quirky, a new voice to enjoy whilst it possibly lasted and more than likely she would do well to get a couple of albums under her belt but gradually fade away. Something then happened to make that possibility a mere inconsequence, she became a female voice of a generation and for that music lovers should be grateful.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
To watch Roddy Woomble on stage is to realise there are two different versions of the man who thrills so many people with his music. There is the one who is energetic and pumped full of adrenaline as part of the great Scottish band Idlewild, a man who throws himself into the action and who gives a charged performance that is exciting but also exhausting to watch. Then there is the man who gives off a relaxed air, a man in tune with his audience and the nature of his surroundings that he exudes class with air of solemnity. For the crowd at Leaf on Bold Street, on stage sat in a tranquil and cosy position was the latter and it was a gig that was just inspirational and powerfully uplifting.
It seems slightly ironic that at a time when the Falklands debate rages once more between the U.K. and Argentinian Governments, an album that uses the conflict between the two countries as a focus for an anti-war message should be celebrating its 30th anniversary. It is almost with bitterness and a shaking of heads that Pink Floyd’s 1983 album The Final Cut should still resonate across the many thousands of miles between Buenos Aires and London. Even after the Falkland Islanders have had the unprecedented and historic vote in the last few weeks on where they see their future, the echoes of a conflict that was born in the spring of 1982 but had its genesis over a period of a couple of hundred years, still rages and the thoughts of the people caught between two ideologically opposed governments might in the end not matter.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
For the first time in five years, one of the beating hearts of musical radical social truth releases an album. Whilst Billy Bragg’s overt dynamism may have mellowed with age, the fire in conviction, the words he wants get across to those that sometimes won’t or can’t listen has never been more acute and on Tooth and Nail, he still uses the power of the ideas running through his head to great effect.
Liverpool Sound And Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Christopher Harrisson, Julian Spooner, Matthew Wells, Daniel Wilcox, Laila Woozeer.
There is a moment in A Strange Wild Song, a well written piece by Rhum and Clay, where the audience feels part of the action, the bombs being dropped from overhead planes that are falling around the near destroyed French village resonate and echo through 70 years and a couple of hundred miles and bring those in the auditorium face to face with one of the most inhuman parts of human history…and with one of the most interesting tales from World War Two.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There cannot be anyone more attached to the world of Agatha Christie on screen than the actor David Suchet. His involvement with the Queen of British Crime Fiction stretches back over 25 years as the detective Hercule Poirot and from the walk, the moustache and his demeanour, he is every little bit the Belgian who turns up to solve some of Agatha Christie’s most enduring and incredible stories.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: David Tennant, Olivia Coleman, Andrew Buchan, Jodie Whittaker, Will Mellor, Arthur Darvill, David Bradley, Jonathon Bailey, Vicky McClure, Charlotte Beaumont, Joe Simms, Carolyn Pickles, Pauline Quirke.
The first line of enquiry is over for the detectives of Broadchurch. The man, the father of the murdered lad certainly had something to hide but it wasn’t the taking of his son’s life. It certainly would have been far too easy for Chris Chibnall to go down that route and have suspicion hang over Andrew Buchan’s character for the next few weeks.