Category Archives: TV

Doctor Who: The Well. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Caoilfhionn Dunne, Christopher Chung, Annabel Brook, Luke Rhodri, Bethany Antonia, Gaz Choudhry, Gary Pillai, Franki Lipman, Paul Kasey, Jermaine Dominique, Anita Dobson, Amy Tyger, Meg Abernethy-Hope, Beyagy Demba, Umit Gozuacik.

There are episodes of Doctor Who that rank so highly that they will not be forgotten, and they all have one major thread in common, that of the near unseen ubiquitous horror that waits just out of sight or that possesses the power to control from within; all other villains of the tales from the blue box are to be feared, but they, these unseen beings that wonderfully spread dread in their wake, they are the truth of terror given the confidence of anxiety.

Doctor Who: The Well. Television Drama Review. full post

(512 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Lux. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Alan Cumming, Linus Roache, Anita Dobson, Ian Shaw, Cassius Hackforth, Ryan Speakman, Millie O’ Connell, Lewis Cornay, Lucy Thackeray, Jane Hancock, William Meredith, Samir Arrian, Bronte Barb, Steph Lacey.

For what seems like a lifetime, the opening two episodes of a series of Doctor Who have been strong, well imagined, and framed with the type of intrigue and long vision scheming that made the long running science fiction serial a much-loved institution in its time.

Doctor Who: Lux. Television Review. full post

(366 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

An Inspector Calls On Moscow. Radio Drama Review.

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.


An Inspector Calls On Moscow. Radio Drama Review. full post

(573 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

The Film. Radio Drama Review.

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.

The Film. Radio Drama Review. full post

(469 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

We The Young Strong. Radio Drama Review.

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.


We The Young Strong. Radio Drama Review. full post

(523 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Anita Dobson, Jonny Green, Max Parker, Thalia Dudek, Stefan Haines, Belinda Owusu, Tom Storey, Stephen Love, Robert Strange, Nicholas Briggs, Evelyn Miller, Charles Sandford, Lucas Edwards, Caleb Hughes, Nadine Higgin, William Ellis.

In a timely reflection on the use of A.I. in the 21st Century, the ethics of appropriation of personal data and biometrics by governments, and the misuse, indeed theft of the individual artists work to train the aspects of artificial intelligence, years of authorship and writing stolen in what can be seen as a monumental reckless abandonment of ethics; so the opening episode of the new series of Doctor Who, The Robot Revolution casts its eye on an old favourite theme, the forgoing of the human existence and spirit in favour of the possibly oppressive, the creeping evil of binary A.I.

Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution. Television Review. full post

(449 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Yellowjackets: Series Three. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Christina Rikki, Sophie Nélisse, Tawny Cypress, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Samatha Hanratty, Warren Kole, Courtney Eaton, Liv Hewson, Kevin Alves, Alexa Barajas, Steven Krueger, Sarah Desjardins, Lauren Ambrose, Hilary Swank, Jenna Burgess, Nia Sondaya, Ella Purnell, Elijah Wood, Simone Kessell, Rukiya Bernard, Aiden Stoxx, Keeya King, Nicole Maines, Anisa Harris, Silvana Estifanos, Vanessa Prasad, Jeff Holman, Joel McHale.

Yellowjackets: Series Three. Television Drama Review. full post

(540 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Miss Scarlet. Series Five. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Kate Phillips, Tom Durant-Pritchard, Cathy Belton, Paul Bazely, Simon Ludders, Evan McCabe, Tim Chipping, Felix Scott, Amy Marston, Paul Thornley, Nitin Ganatra, Lucy Liemann, Stephen Hartley, Stephen Boxer, Karl Theobald, Andrej Sepetkovski, Joseph May, Paul Leonard Murray, Rebecca Collingwood, Ian Hughes, Paul Lacoux, Petar Zekavica, Milos Pantic, Brian Bovell, Vahidin Prelic, Milan Cucilovic, Ivana Adzic, Milan Milosavljevic, Branislav Zeremski, Robin Weaver, Anna Wilson-Jones, David Sturzaker, Lindsay Bennett-Thompson, Nikola Surbanovic, Filip Radovanovic, Joakim Tasic.

Miss Scarlet. Series Five. Television Drama Review. full post

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

The Marlow Murder Club: Series 2. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, Cara Horgan, Natalie Dew, Hollie Dempsey, Phil Langhorne, Tijan Sarr, Niall Costigan, Ella Kenion, Rita Tushingham, Sophia Ally, Ian Barritt, Amelia Valentina Pankhania, Ethan Quinn, Tegan Imani, Lizzie Roper, Emily Bevan, Raphael Akuwudike, Sam Janus, Abigail Cruttenden, Caroline Langrishe, Nina Sosanya, William Willoughby, Hugh Quarshie, Dominic Mafham.

A second season of The Marlow Murder Club was always on the cards, but sometimes popular doesn’t always reach into the depths of the crime that begs to be solved by the armchair detective; sometimes the presented piece is too warm, too cosy to be anything other than a distraction offered with the best intentions of drama.

The Marlow Murder Club: Series 2. Television Drama Review. full post

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

A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones, Toby Stephens, Mark Stephens, Joe Armstrong, Mark Stanley, Juliet Stephenson, Bessie Carter, Arthur Darvill, Laurie Davidson, Amanda Drew, Gloria Obianyo, Jack Staddon, Ed Sayer, Adam Lawrence, Tony Wadham, Sidney Jackson, Darren Charman, Tim Pierpoint, Maddy Hill, Rowan Robinson, Audrey Brisson, Nigel Havers.

We live in a different time, crimes for the most part that shocked a generation that was still living with the hangover from the Victorian era, and which carried a greater degree of punishment, now would be scoured over completely, every detail of the crime pursued and in some cases the public response would be more noticeable, more intense, as social media informed people of everything that was reported; and an awful lot that wasn’t.


A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story. Television Drama Review. full post

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