Category Archives: Audio Drama/Radio Plays

Sapphire And Steel: The School. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Keith Drinkel, Lisa Daniely, Victoria Gould, James Daniel Wilson.

Time goes by, they say it’s the time of your life, the best of days, the ones that you will look back upon with a fair degree of fondness; and yet there is also pain, suffering, the sense of alienation and fear that hides in those memories, the real sense of confidence taken apart, the spirit shattered, and as for the pupils, the first love’s kiss can be a mess, the promise of a future swept away. It is no wonder that when we look back at our days at school, depending on the mood we are in or the company we are keeping, we experience the high of the reminisce, the low of emotional recall.

Sapphire And Steel: The School. Audio Drama Review. full post

(464 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Sapphire And Steel: Dead Man Walking. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Warner, Susanna Harker, David Collings, Arthur Bostrom, Jo Castleton, Neil Cole, Michael Chance, Nigel Fairs, Suzanne Proctor, Linda Bartram.

It is perhaps not the threat of confinement, justice, or even morals that keeps the vast majority of society on the straight and narrow, but perhaps rather the fear of spending a portion of their life behind bars with Time for company. The trepidation is not the sense of the law exacting its revenge on you for your crimes, but the retribution sought by Time as it has the ability to make you feel the damnation of all that you may have destroyed, taken, and killed.

Sapphire And Steel: Dead Man Walking. Audio Drama Review. full post

(500 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Sapphire And Steel: The Lighthouse. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Joseph Young, Neil Salvadge, Ian Hallard, Lucy Beresford, Michael Adams, Stuart Piper.

The lies we tell ourselves, the secrets we keep in our mind, are the endless triggers for Time to leak from the past and into the future, and what we may believe is our own private self being protected from admitting our failures, the darkness within, it has a habit of spilling out, thanks to Time, and infecting others, putting lives in mortal danger.

Sapphire And Steel: The Lighthouse. Audio Drama Review. full post

(453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Sapphire And Steel: All Fall Down. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, David Collings, Michael Chance, Kate Dyson, Suzanne Proctor, Linda Bartram, Neil Cole.

Time is full of tricks, it has the ability to knock humanity off its perch repeatedly and humble the species to the point where it doubts itself and can turn against rhyme and reason in the pursuit of self-satisfaction and self-interest.

Sapphire And Steel: All Fall Down. Audio Drama Review. full post

(356 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Sapphire And Steel: Daisy Chain. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Kim Hartman, Lena Rae, Stuart Piper, Emma Kilbey, Joseph Lidster.

When the question is posed by a force or instrument of evil or dangerous intent, “Would you sacrifice yourself to save your family?, for the majority of us we would perhaps not hesitate to answer in the positive, that we gladly give our lives if it meant that those we love around us were to survive.

Sapphire And Steel: Daisy Chain. Audio Drama Review. full post

(405 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Sapphire And Steel: The Passenger. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Mark Gatiss, Hugo Myatt, Jackie Skarvellis, Neil Henry, Claire Louise Connolly.

Guilt, or the shouldering of blame and responsibility, even if by all logical deductions incapable or culpable of the crimes committed, is a disease of the soul that will keep eating away at your mind until there is nothing left to be devoured. We should accept the blame, we must feel the remorse of actions that we undertake which has caused someone pain, inflicted misery, affected their life, or even taken it, however, there comes a time when the feeling and effects of guilt, especially when innocence is forced to accept or adapt to the cognitive association to which our own inner desires may not yet have asserted themselves.

Sapphire And Steel: The Passenger. Audio Drama Review. full post

(504 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, Sacha Dhawan, Patrick O’Kane, Ian McElhinney, Julie Graham, Alex Austin, Matt Carver, Rhiannon Clements, Seylan Baxter, Kirsty Besterman, Paul Kasey, Nicholas Briggs, Jo Martin, Steve Toussaint, Matt Carver, Jack Osborn, Evan McCabe, Branwell Donaghey, Orla O’Rourke, Andrew Macklin, Coalyn Byrne, Matthew Rohman, Simon Carew, Jen Davey, Rochard Highgate, Richard Price, Mickey Lewis, Matthew Doman, Paul Bailey. 

Doctor Who: Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children. Television Review. full post

(544 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

Dan Dare: Reign Of Robots. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ed Stoppard, Geoff McGivern, Heide Reed, Raad Rawi, Michael Cochrane, Amy Humphreys, Dianne Weller, George Bryan.

Dan Dare, the name for adults of a certain age which evokes memories that have never been allowed to fade, to be allowed to slip into the murky waters of the unreliable adaptation without a fight and for whom, with sadness, means arguably nothing to a generation or two that has moved on, tired of the escapism provided by the weekly comic strip and the collections turned to clutter in their rooms.

Dan Dare: Reign Of Robots. Audio Drama Review. full post

(638 words, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

James Bond: Goldfinger. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Toby Stephens, Ian McKellen, Rosamund Pike, Lisa Dillon, John Standing, Tom Hollander, Tim Pigott-Smith, Hector Elizondo, Alistair McGowan, Henry Goodman, Ian Ogilvy, Lloyd Owen, Jon David Yu, Anna Louise Plowman, Martin Jarvis, Nigel Anthony, Alan Shearman, Kyle Stoller, Tracy Patin.

There are many images that come to mind when you think of James Bond, the cars, the exotic destinations, the acts of heroism, the portrayals of the women to enter the British spy’s life, some of whom have left a lasting impression on the viewer’s mind, not only for their strength of character but for the way they became a symbol of the times, for the way some were murdered at the hands of Bond’s enemies in retribution for the spy getting too close to solving the mystery.

James Bond: Goldfinger. Audio Drama Review. full post

(533 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

James Bond: Moonraker. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Toby Stephens, Samuel West, John Baddeley, Janie Dee, John Standing, Julian Sands, Jared Harris, Patricia Hodge, Katherine Kingsley, Nigel Anthony, Simon de Deney, Jon Glover, Ian Ogilvy, Matthew Wolf, Darren Richardson, Kenneth Danziger, Martin Jarvis.

There are many reasons for which a story needs to be altered dramatically to make it stand up the cinematic scrutiny in the modern age, and whilst the original tale might be in itself one of beauty, of fascinating intrigue, its very premise in the age of the blockbuster and the need for revenue return would not see it become an instant best seller, or indeed a memorable film in which, in the case of the James Bond franchise, to captivate an audience so they will keep coming back for more.

James Bond: Moonraker. Audio Drama Review. full post

(490 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)