Category Archives: Audio Drama/Radio Plays

Looking For Oil Drum Lane. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Marc Wootton, Barry Castagnola, James Hurn, Phil Cornwell, Ian Pearce, Toby Longworth.

It has been observed that the closest occupation resembling death, is that of writing. The endless search for inspiration is consuming, an overwhelming, often fearful, unbearable shadow in which the writer sees only blankness before them. It is a struggle that requires discipline, the ability to keep going in a desert of solo thought, and fortune to come up with an idea that, if you are lucky, will grip the nation in tears, or with hope in laughter.

Looking For Oil Drum Lane. Radio Drama Review. full post

(568 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

The Haunting Of M.R. James. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mark Gatiss, Fenella Woolgar, Ryan Whittle, Gerald McDermott, Cameron Percival, Ronny Jhutti, Michael Bertenshaw, Tony Turner, Ewan Bailey, Chris Harper, Sam Dale, Lewis Bray.

We live in a world that is rapidly losing its sense of wonder, of having everything explained and leaving the thought of fancy and intrigue hanging in the air as if somehow resembling the figure of dishonest fruit hiding knowledge from the feast of humanity.

The Haunting Of M.R. James. Radio Drama Review. full post

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

Born To Be Wilde: An Ideal Husband. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: John Heffernan, Miranda Raison, Ryan Whittle, Lucy Doyle, Saffron Coomber, Michael Bertenshaw, Elizabeth Counsell, Tony Turner, Sean Murray.

If you can change the appearance of William Shakespeare’s work by adding a certain modern charm to the story, then any writer from literature’s illustrious past is worthy of eliciting a certain degree of similar occasion from; many will be called to the performance circle, many works will be deemed unfavourably, some unconsciously denied the modern touch and added personal extras, and some will shine like a beacon of joy, asking only companionship for a while of the supporter.

Born To Be Wilde: An Ideal Husband. Radio Drama Review. full post

(460 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

End Of Days. Radio Podcast Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

We only see the clarity of the defining moment, we have a vague sense of what may have happened before, the prelude to the final act, but the aftermath we find perhaps dull, the event has moved on and we, as human beings, only have the attention span in which to express our opinion in which makes sense to us.

End Of Days. Radio Podcast Review. full post

(585 words, estimated 2:20 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. The Song of Megaptera. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, John Benfield, Neville Watchurst, John Banks, Susan Brown, Toby Longworth, Alex Lowe.

One of the reasons Doctor Who worked in the classic series and continues to do so in the modern age, is because the people behind it were not afraid to be politically adventurous, to put in a story line that will rock the minds of certain bodies, institutions and Government to its core; it might not be as damning as television series as Death on the Rock, A Very British Coup, Hillsborough or Edge of Darkness but in its early evening television slot way it was just as hard hitting and made the viewer think about humanity’s place in the world and the political agenda it found itself in.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. The Song of Megaptera. Audio Drama Review. full post

(498 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

John Finnemore’s The Wroxton Box. Radio Comedy Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: John Finnemore, Michael Palin.

The trouble is with the 20th Century, there are just too many candidates for the title of most destructive human to walk the Earth. Some merit their position purely by being in a position of power, by sending their armies into invade and cause annihilation of a particular people, of lives wiped out and their history’s erased purely out of suspicion and greed. For some though the misery they cause comes down to public arson, of dismantling the nation’s heritage all in the name of so called progress; Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher undoubtedly belongs in the column, and so too does the murderer of the Railways, Dr. Richard Beeching.

John Finnemore’s The Wroxton Box. Radio Comedy Review. full post

(476 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories, Paradise 5. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Alex Macqueen, James D’Arcy, Helen Goldwyn, Andree Bernard, Teddy Kempner, Claire Wyatt, Richard Earl.

You can always trust humanity to turn to the more unsavoury pursuits of existence, murder, slavery, greed, power, materialism and brutality, in the time it takes to say there is money to be made from people’s misery and where is the will; for in the vice of stone hearted souls nothing comes close to feeding damnation than the love of money.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories, Paradise 5. Audio Drama Review. full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

John Finnamore’s Double Acts: The Goliath Window. Radio Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Simon Kane, John Finnemore.

Looking back at the way the English language has evolved, advanced to a point where it was almost beautifully poetic, even when it was intended to deride and ridicule the pompous, arrogant or ridiculously self-important, it seems a shame that in the current age we seem to have fallen back on a much cruder tongue, to a point where even the insults are flat and rely on slugged barbs rather than wit, wisdom and the smile of a verbal attack well made.

John Finnamore’s Double Acts: The Goliath Window. Radio Review. full post

(444 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. Point Of Entry. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Matt Addis, Luis Salo, Sean Connolly, Tam Williams, Gemma Wardle, Ian Brooker.

It can be a source of bemusement to those seek the literary inside the Doctor Who universe that the soul of Kit Marlowe has not made an appearance, let alone an impression on the world; for a man to whom English literature would be sorely poorer without having picked up a pen and to whom the world of early espionage and skulduggery would be infinitely more boring to read about, Christopher Marlowe remains intriguingly still persona non grata, not only in the world we inhabit but in the fictional tales that could be wrought.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. Point Of Entry. Audio Drama Review. full post

(483 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

John Finnemore’s Double Acts: Penguin Diplomacy. Radio Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Martin Clunes, Tom Goodman-Hill.

There is always the chance that the storm in the South Atlantic could once more blow cold, that any disputed island off the South Americas might find itself part of an invasion or at least the warmth and cordial act of diplomacy and the polite conversation regarding the sexual appetites of Penguins.

John Finnemore’s Double Acts: Penguin Diplomacy. Radio Review. full post

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