Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Siw Hughes, Angharad Phillips, Lisa Zahra, Richard Elfyn, Sion Pritchard, Luke Bailey, Kellie-Gwen Morgan, Maria Claudia Perrone.
It’s the little things that mean the most, and when those moments are taken from us, we can understandably be upset at the loss, it strikes at the very fabric of our being, our sense of self becomes doubted, and eats away at what can remember of those whose memory we came to immortalise.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Benedict Cumberpatch, Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole, John Finnemore.
The B.B.C. has always given comedy shows that gain a good following on the radio a big leg up to television when the time was right, the crossover a seamless and natural curve in the life of decent shows that grow up to big favourites on the small screen. From the days of Hancock’s Half Hour , the B.B.C. has nurtured the radio comedy like a gleaming talented child. It is a bit surprising to find that even after four series of the hilarious and cleverly written B.B.C. Four Extra programme Cabin Pressure, it still doesn’t seem to be any closer to getting the nod to transfer over.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Toby Stephens, Hugh Bonneville, Josh Stamberg, Matthew Wolf, John Standing, Lloyd Owen, Darren Richardson, Anne Mathias, Andre Sogliuzzo, Moira Quirk, Henrie Lubatti, Alan Shearman, Martin Jarvis.
The cinematic release in 2006 of Casino Royale is arguably one of the most dramatic of adaptions from any of Ian Fleming’s considerable list of tales that focus on the life of the British spy, James Bond. To capture that intensity in a radio drama could be considered a tough ask for the writer, for the director, and the consummate cast at his disposal.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Cate Blanchett.
To perform a monologue of over a certain length takes a huge amount of skill on behalf of the actor, whose voice must convey every emotion, and reveal every secret, and that of the writer, is an act of artistry that few can convey with a complete and utter resounding of detail in which the audience can feel the trust of the performance as being exposed as a confession, a sense of the sacred divine in human form.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Rory Kinnear, Karen Ascoe, Nigel Anthony, Paul Hilton, Richard Attlee, Trevor Littledale, Samantha Hughes, Inna Metlina, Olegs Ohotins.
There can be little doubt that J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls is one of the most enduring, important, and defining plays of the 20th Century. Conceived and written at a time when the fire that consumed the world and destroyed what little pretence that we projected to having a society being for the benefit of all, and was shakily losing ground to the horrors unearthed on foreign fields; and yet one that might not have seen the light of day in post war Britain because of Winston Churchill’s umbrage and offence to the writer’s socialist beliefs.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Henry Goodman, Jeremy Swift, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Fenella Woolgar, Hamilton Berstock.
It was not until Channel 4 had the sense of duty that had been denied Sidney Bernstein, Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Crossman, and a whole platoon of film makers that made their way to various concentration camps as liberation from the Nazi terror that had engulfed Europe, then perhaps only a select few would have ever been privy to the immense documentary collaboration that became known at the time as German Concentration Camps Factual Survey , but which perhaps had even greater impact when released in the chilling 2015 release as Night Will Fall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Poppy Gilbert, Calvin Demba, Finlay Paul, Ruby Bentall, Abbigail Weinstock, Kiki May, Jenny Funnell, Paul Hinton, Abi McLoughlin, Tom Alexander.
The warning from history is not so much to be wary of certain political ideologies, but instead to shun those who wield the power and authority with charisma to pull in and manipulate the youth whose minds are easily swayed in the face of deprivation and neglect.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Adrian Edmondson, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Simon Callow, Christopher Ryan, Madeleine Paulson.
In many ways Waiting For Waiting For Godot is the play that Adrian Edmondson was born to write; full of pathos, a piece of art from Samuel Beckett that has had the actor/writer/comedian enthralled and obsessed since he was a young man.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Jonathan Aris, Lorne MacFadyen, Lizzy Watts, Tyger Drew-Honey, Matt Addis, Joanna Brooks, Jessica Dennis, Paul Panting, Alistair McGowan, Barkha Bahar.
National tragedies have a habit of slowly fading from the memory over time, not least of all because those directly involved in the disaster will themselves succumb to the passing of time, but it is because of nature; we as citizens can carry placards in anger, we can weep in unison at the senselessness of the catastrophe, we can rage and demand tougher actions to keep people safe, and we will seek retribution against the one person we might hold responsible…even if it defined to have been caused by simple misfortune, or the most unfortunate of mistakes.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Paul Whitehouse, Harry Enfield, Don Gilet, Lee Ross, Tony Gardner, Mika Simmons, Simon Greenall, Phil Cornwell, Toby Longworth, Andrew McGibbon, Ian Pearce, Karen Bartke.
Out of adversity comes genius, from hardship come friendship that lasts a lifetime, and When Alan Met Ray in a T.B. sanitorium in post war Britain, when neither 18-year-old were expected to live much longer thanks to the disease the world called White Plague or Consumption ravaging their lungs and body, what came out of this terrible situation was a comradeship for Alan Simpson and Ray Galton that transcended disease and saw the pair became two of Britain’s much loved providers of comedy thanks to their working with Tony Hancock on radio and television, and the irreplaceable Harry H. Corbett and Wilfred Brambell on the sheer delight that was Steptoe And Son.