Category Archives: TV

Doctor Who: Orphan 55. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, Laura Fraser, Gia Re, James Buckley, Julia Foster, Amy Booth-Steel, Will Austin, Col Farrell, Lewin Lloyd, Spencer Wilding.

Regardless of whether we feel like we are being preached to, or we accept that occasionally we require reminding, we are not the masters of our world; we may act like it, we rape and pillage all the natural resources, shed a tear as animals burn but count the pounds, shillings and pence as we profit from yet another mine opening, another plastic bag found at the bottom of the sea but we save a tenner on a flight. Such is the cause and effect of our actions on the planet, that we can be seen as monsters in our own reflections, not matter how much good we try to bestow.

Doctor Who: Orphan 55. Television Review. full post

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

Vera: Blood Will Tell. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Brenda Blethyn, Kenny Doughty, Jon Morrison, Ibinabo Jack, Riley Jones, Paul Kaye, Barry Aird, Marian McLoughlin, David Birrell, Jalaal Hartley, Charlotte Pyke, Simon Trinder, Josh Barrow, Brian Lonsdale, Viraj Juneeja, Amaka Okafor, Janine Birkett, Jay Saighal, Jonathan Spencer, Charity Bedu-addo.

When it comes to murder, motive is seen as a prime indication of guilt, the trouble being is that an investigation is rarely that clean and clear cut and if everyone who had motive acted out on the dark fantasy of assassination and killing, then there would be an awful lot more bodies on the pathologist’s table; such is our depths of self-destruction and possible fall outs that death and murder are the two constants that drive the universe on.

Vera: Blood Will Tell. Television Review. full post

(507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

The Goes Wrong Show: A Trial To Watch. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Bryony Corrigan, Dave Hearn, Henry Lewis, Charlie Russell, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields, Greg Tannahill, Nancy Zamit.

The art of farce and slapstick is form that only comes alive when the whole production is behind it, it cannot be achieved in half measures, it requires all the cast to be on their absolute game; a situation where the magic of the farce is brutally exploited to make the belief of ineptness become just as much as part of the act as the mockery and cynicism to which the situation calls for.

The Goes Wrong Show: A Trial To Watch. Television Review. full post

(371 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Midsomer Murders: Till Death Do Us Part. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Annette Badland, Camilla Arfwedson, Ella Blainska, Kelly Brook, Michael Fox, Liz Fraser, Gabrielle Glaister, Nick Hancock, Colin McFarlane, Maya Sondhi, Fenella Woolgar.

To have and to hold…Till Death Do Us Part, sometimes the symbolic words take on extra meaning, especially when a marriage is short-lived, something that is arguably a possibility when the ceremony is held in the vicinity of Midsomer.

Midsomer Murders: Till Death Do Us Part. Television Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: Spyfall (Parts One And Two). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, Sacha Dhawan, Lenny Henry, Stephen Fry, Aurora Marion, Slyvie Briggs, Mark Dexter, Shibna Gulati, Ravin J. Ganatra, Bhavnisha Parmar, Melissa De Vries, Sacharissa Claxton, William Ely, Brian Law, Buom Tihngang, Asif Khan, Andrew Bone, Ronan Summers, Christopher McArthur, Darron Meyer, Dominique Maher, Struan Rodger, Lex Lamprey, James Rockey, Andrew Pipe, Tom Ashley, Kenneth Jay, Blanche Williams.

The spies in disguise, ones to whom perhaps have thrown off the shackles of the previous series and now have free reign to take the long running show into a new direction.

Doctor Who: Spyfall (Parts One And Two). Television Review. full post

(603 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Dracula. Television Review.(2020).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Claes Bang, Dolly Wells, John Heffernan, Joanna Scanlan, Morfydd Clark, Lujza Richter, Lyndsey Marshall, Corinna Wilson, Mark Gatiss, Matthew Beard, Tim Ignall, Jonathan Aris, Chanel Cresswell, Petra Dubayova, Sacha Shawan, Youssef Kerkour, Phil Dunster, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Patrick Walshe McBride, Lydia West, Clive Russell, Catherine Schell, Samuel Blenkin, Anthony Flanagan, Alec Utgoff, Dilyana Bouklieva, Andrew Byron, Lily Dodsworth-Evans, Ria Fend, Katherine Jakeways, Lily Kakkar, Scott Karim, Anthony Kaye, Olivia Klein, Abdulla Majid, John McCrea, Sarah Niles, Sofia Oxenham, Natasha Radski, Joakim Skarli, Veronica Stanwell, Cat White, Millicent Wong.

Dracula. Television Review.(2020). full post

(617 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

The Goes Wrong Show: The Pilot (Not The Pilot. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Bryony Corrigan, Dave Hearn, Nancy Zamit, Chris Leask, Henry Lewis, Charlie Russell, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields.

Audiences have become too used to the idea of historical inaccuracies being part of a plot line, so much so that we no longer question them with the same level of interrogation as we used to. They are presented as adding texture to the story, vital to portray the themes in a certain light and to perhaps highlight a certain character’s involvement in the tale to a greater effect that was played out in real life.

The Goes Wrong Show: The Pilot (Not The Pilot. Television Review. full post

(422 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Worzel Gummidge: The Green Man. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mackenzie Crook, Steve Pemberton, Rosie Cavaliero, India Brown, Thierry Wickens, Zoe Wanamaker, Michael Palin, Francesca Mills, Lucy Montgomery, Colin Michael Carmichael, Gus Brown, Kiran Shah, Malik Ibheis.

The ways of the countryside, the laws that govern nature have become so bound up in a myth like status that for anyone who doesn’t step outside their concrete bubble from time to time and into the hands of The Green Man that shapes our lands, can be seen as missing out on an education in which surely improves the soul.

Worzel Gummidge: The Green Man. Television Review. full post

(396 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Worzel Gummidge: The Scarecrow Of Scatterbrook Farm. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mackenzie Crook, Steve Pemberton, Rosie Cavaliero, India Brown, Thierry Wickens, Vicki Pepperdine, Ben Langley, Mariam Haque, Tom Meeten, Francesca Mills, Tim Plester, Phil Hulford, Andrew James Spooner, Kiran Shah, Charlie Mayhew. 

To step into the shoes of the late, great, Jon Pertwee is surely a daunting task to which few would entertain, let alone actually attempt; and yet in the guise of one of the actor’s most famous parts, that of Worzel Gummidge, Mackenzie Crook not only captures the essence of the children’s television favourite, he brings the much loved scarecrow into the modern age, one that is steeped in a reflection of the need to bring nature much closer to the generations who have grown up within the boundary of concrete and tarmac, and the concern over climate change and human-made pollution has wrecked upon the planet.

Worzel Gummidge: The Scarecrow Of Scatterbrook Farm. Television Review. full post

(425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Susan Hill’s Ghost Story. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Douglas Henshall, Neve McIntosh, Louise Lombard, Adrian Rawlins, Casper Knopf, Maryam Hamidi, Cal MacAninch, Woody Norman, Paul Barber, Andrew John Tait, Calum Caulfield, Billy Thomson.

The issue with ghost stories that some might have has always been in the way the tale is resolved, like the mythical beast who sees the balance of power restored by the villagers below with one last gift offered to sate the taste of vengeance running in its blood. It is to this end that the typical ghost story ends the way it does, the murdered victim slipping away into the ether as the trembling confession is pulled from the mouth of the killer; it is neat and most of the time still leaves the viewer or reader with their own satisfaction sated.

Susan Hill’s Ghost Story. Television Review. full post

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