Category Archives: TV

Home From Home. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Johnny Vegas, Emilia Fox, Adam James, Niky Wardley, Oscar Kennedy, Harvey Chaisty, Paul Barber, Elaine Paige, Pearce Quigley, Olive Gray, Susan Calman.

Johnny Vegas certainly deserves his chance to headline a major B.B.C. comedy, after all, he has provided fans of the series Still Open All Hours with plenty of laughter, and his relationship with David Jason, Kulvinder Ghir and above all Sally Lindsay, is to be admired, the transition made from stand up to small screen is seamless, even perhaps a greater virtue, one in which finally the actor can feel Home From Home.

Home From Home. Television Review. full post

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

Midsomer Murders: The Curse Of The Ninth. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Manjinder Virk, Callum Blake, Simon Callow, Colin Michael Carmichael, Robert Daws, James Fleet, Rosie Holden, Matthew Jacobs Morgan, Caroline Langrishe, Cyril Nri, Maggie O’ Neill, Joseph Prowen, Flora Spencer-Longhurst.

You can be scarred for life by the sword as it maims you, cuts into your skin and draws blood, but it is death by the bow that leaves you cold and frightened, the artist’s revenge and thoughts of cold bloodied murder always more palpable as the strings are drawn and the fire in the cold stare is highlighted across the bridge and the arm, drawing back till something snaps and the music becomes a requiem.

Midsomer Murders: The Curse Of The Ninth. Television Review. full post

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

Innocent. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Lee Ingleby, Daniel Ryan, Adrian Rawlins, Hermione Norris, Angel Coulby, Fionn O’Shea, Nigel Lindsay, Eloise Webb, Samuel Edward-Cook, Zahra Ahmadi, Hannah Britland, Christine Cole, Tony Gardner, Nicholas Asbury, Elliott Cowan.

To serve time, in any capacity, for a crime you didn’t commit; has to be arguably the most soul destroying, most seething with rage and contempt for your peers that you will ever feel, the emotions run high, the anger always at boiling point, and with no way to let off steam because you are locked away. The system, corrupt and dishonest, shakes your belief to the very core and no matter how hard it is to keep face, to show the world you are not beaten, the illusion of being Innocent soon slips away; society exacting its pound of flesh in revenge for the misdeeds you didn’t commit.

Innocent. Television Review. full post

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

Midsomer Murders: Death By Persuassion. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Samuel West, Susie Blake, Abigail Cruttenden, Claire Skinner, Nicholas Gleaves, Georgie Glen, Chris Lew Kum Hoi, John Macmillan, Anamaria Marinca, Paul Shelley, Thalissa Teixera, Karl Theobald, Jodie Tyack, Lotte Rice.

You can arguably do no wrong by having the name Jane Austen come to lips of those you are indebted to performing in front of; a sure-fire winner, only the Brontes could lead the television or cinema audience to sit up and take notice more readily, even the most tenuous link will do, and it is that the scriptwriters have a moral duty to not let the work descend into a screenplay anarchy, dependent upon creating a pastiche which is below gratitude and honour to the much-loved writer, which sparks of desperation and folly.

Midsomer Murders: Death By Persuassion. Television Review. full post

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

The Woman In White. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Ben Hardy, Olivia Vinall, Art Malik, Ricardo Scamarcio, Sonya Cassidy, Joanna Scanlan, Ivan Kaye, Ruth Sheen, Dougray Scott, Charles Dance, Nicholas Jones, Vicki Pepperdine, Kerry Fox, Christopher Fairbank, Clare McMahon, James Flynn, Cathy Belton, Jesse Magee, Matthew Lawson, Frankie McCafferty, Cole Currin, James Flynn, Carla Bryson, Frankie McCafferty.

The Woman In White. Television Review. full post

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

The City & The City. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: David Morrissey, Mandeep Dhillion, Christian Camargo, Roon Cook, Robert Firth, Lara Pulver, Maria Schrader, Paprika Steen, Danny Webb, Lee Bagley, Cokey Falkow, Michael Moshonov, Amélie Chantrey, Barry Aird, Morfydd Clark, Corey Johnson, Kasia koleczek.

There was once a view point that there were books that just could not be filmed, regardless of cost, the story-line was just too complex or even off the scale in its imagination to hold a television or film audience’s attention, at least not without confusing them and losing interest. View points are subjective, The Lord of the Rings would have been considered impossible, Terry Pratchet’s work would have been consigned to this particular undead realm, and books such Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and ideas such as Alien would have long been left on the shelf.

The City & The City. Television Review. full post

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

The Merchant Of Venice: Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ray Fearon, Colin Morgan, Hayley Atwell, Andrew Scott, Ryan Whittle, Neerja Naik, Ryan Early, Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Lauren Cornelius, Luke Bailey, Kerry Gooderson, Stefan Adegbola, Javier Marzan, Neil McCaul, Clive Hayward, Rupert Holliday-Evans.

Long regarded in the first folio of William Shakespeare’s works as perhaps nothing more than a romantic comedy, it is with fresh eyes in this more discerning and in part justly cynical age to look upon The Merchant of Venice as a problem play, one that deals with the idea of outspoken racism, of anti-Semitism and even inward contempt and intolerance towards a man of another faith, using his debt in which to berate him consciously for his words and supposed lack of loyalty to his God.

The Merchant Of Venice: Radio Drama Review. full post

(431 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Ordeal By Innocence. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Bill Nighy, Luke Treadaway, Anthony Boyle, Anna Chancellor, Morven Christie, Crystal Clarke, Alice Eve, Matthew Goode, Ella Purnell, Eleanor Tomlinson, Brian McCardie, Luke Murray, Hayden Robertson, Catriona McNicoll, Abigail Conteh, Rhys Lambert, Frances Grey.

In the world of Agatha Christie nobody is innocent, all have a dark secret they wish to keep hidden from view and it is in the capturing of the human capacity for deceit that makes Ms. Christie, almost 50 years after her death, one author from the 20th Century who makes the reader understand with absolute certainty that death is but a companion in the shadow of our hearts when it comes to the bitterness, jealousy and greed we allow to dwell in our souls.

Ordeal By Innocence. Television Review. full post

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

Marcella: Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Anna Friel, Jamie Bamber, Nicholas Pinnock, Ray Panthaki, Jack Doolan, Charlie Covell, Sophie Brown, Keith Allen, Nigel Planer, Jason Hughes, Victoria Smurfit, Peter Sullivan, Amy Dawson, Josh Herdman, Harriet Cains, Victoria Broom, Tamzin Malleson, Vivienne Gibbs, Andrew Tiernan, Lucy Speed, Michael Wildman, Clara Indrani, Yolanda Kettle, Asher Flowers, Imogen Faires, Aldo Maland, Oaklee Pendergast.

The mind is an impressive machine, capable of so much, of inspiring absolutes and able to conquer all with reason, the heavens, the stars and its surroundings, yet often it is missing the vital information required to see the whole picture, to grasp the data shown and act upon it accordingly and deal with life without breaking down, without feeling as though you’re losing your mind.

Marcella: Series Two. Television Review. full post

(492 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Come Home. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Paula Malcomson, Anthony Boyle, Brandon Brownlee, Darcy McNeeley, Lola Pettigrew, Kerri Quinn, Rhys Dunlop, Patrick O’Kane, Susan Ateh, Brid Brennan, Seainin Brennan, Joanne Crawford, Derbhie Crotty, Daryl Foster, Roisin Gallagher, Perveen Hussain, Grainne Keenan, Rory Keenan, Paul Kennedy, Edward MacLiam, Eleanor Methven, Clara Onyemere, Shashi Rami, Sean Sloan, Abe Smyth.

Come Home. Television Review. full post

(552 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)