Category Archives: TV

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)

His Dark Materials. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Lucian Msamti, James Cosmo, Ariyon Bakare, Daniel Frogson, Anne-Marie Duff, Clarke Peters, Will Keen, Gary Lewis, Lewin Lloyd, James McAvoy, Georgina Campbell, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ruta Gedmintas, Lia Williams, Amir Wilson, Nina Sosanya, Simon Manyonda, Geoff Ball, Mat Fraser, David Langham, Robert Emms, Morfydd Clark, Frank Bourke, Jamie Wilkes, Joe Tandberg, Kit Connor, Harry Melling, Omid Djalali, Andrew Scott.

His Dark Materials. Television Review. full post

(442 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Still Open All Hours, Series Six. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: David Jason, James Baxter, Stephanie Cole, Maggie Ollerenshaw, Brigit Forsyth, Johnny Vegas, Sally Lindsay, Tim Healy, Kulvinder Ghir, Geoffrey Whitehead, Sue Holderness, Katie Redford, Sophie Willan, Dean Smith, Archie Panjabi, Clive Mantle.

There is a place for consistency in this world, that not everything requires the phantasm of excess to thrill and delight an audience, that it is worth remembering that the so called gentle comedy can be just as subversive as the supposed anarchic; and across time it is to actors such as David Jason that provides the link between the two.

Still Open All Hours, Series Six. Television Review. full post

(364 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

Martin’s Close. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Wilf Scolding, Simon Williams, Sara Crowe, James Holmes, Fisayo Akinade, Elliot Levey, Jessica Temple.

Christmas isn’t Christmas without a good ghost story to chill the blood before the delight associated with the big day, it is perhaps one of the true reminders of our own mortality that we have taken for granted in an age of reason and excess, and one that cannot be dismissed easily when placed against the all- consuming thought of endings, of how the year is once more placed in darkness and shrouded in winter meaning.

Martin’s Close. Television Review. full post

(378 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Not Going Out: Driving Home For Christmas. 2019 Christmas Special. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Lee Mack, Sally Bretton, Bobby Ball, Deborah Grant, Geoffrey Whitehead.

The absurd lengths that some people will go to deliver the perfect Christmas is rarely seen as being a laughing matter, a day of peace hijacked by the sheer need to be triumphant and the one-upmanship of being considered the best parent in the world drives many to actions they wouldn’t even dream of committing the rest of the year.

Not Going Out: Driving Home For Christmas. 2019 Christmas Special. Television Review. full post

(387 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

A Christmas Carol. Television Review. (2019).

Liverpool Sound and vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Guy Pearce, Stephen Graham, Joe Alwyn, Vinette Robinson, Lenny Rush, Jason Flemyng, Johnny Harris, Tiarna Williams, Billy Barratt, Carmel Laniado, Paul Chahidi, Tom Medcalf, Ninette Finch, Andy Serkis, Charlotte Riley, Kayvan Novak, Callum Evans, Earl Carpenter, Dan Fredenburgh, Elliot Warren, Niamh Lynch, Abraham Popoola.

There are many reasons why A Christmas Carol is so beloved, why it keeps enticing directors and adaptors to Charles Dickens’ most famous work and audiences enthralled with its message of redemption and hope; but a missing link to the truth of the human condition has not been one of them.

A Christmas Carol. Television Review. (2019). full post

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

The Goes Wrong Show: The Spirit Of Christmas. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

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

The Spirit of Christmas is such a dichotomy of appreciation, a split personality of complete embrace or the careful shun avoiding infection, that in the modern age it can leave you cold and wanting to leave the conceit of life behind, it is in this that the feelings of emotions can become overwhelming, that they can uplift to the point of ecstasy or plunge the soul into turmoil; the only reasonable course of action to take is to find something to laugh with and see the whole period for what it often is, a cosmic farce given the chance to smile.

The Goes Wrong Show: The Spirit Of Christmas. Television Review. full post

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

Watchmen. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Andrew Howard, Louis Gossett Jr., Jean Smart, Sara Vickers, Tom Mison, Tim Blake Nelson, Don Johnson, Frances Fisher, Yahya Abdul-Mateenn II, Jacob Ming-Trent, James Wolk, Jessica Camacho, Dustin Ingram, Cheyenne Jackson, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Chris Whitley, Jake McDorman, Hong Chau.

Who watches the watchers, probably the same enlightened people that first flocked to the writing and artwork of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons when the sensational and ground-breaking graphic comics and subsequent novel Watchmen was released, who watches the watchers, arguably those who saw the novel turned into a tremendous, if undervalued by the initial cinema going public at the time, film of the same name…who watches the Watchmen, anyone with sense should.

Watchmen. Television Series Review. full post

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