Category Archives: TV

New Tricks: Last Man Standing. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Dennis Waterman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tamzin Outhwaite, Anthony Calf, Tracy Ann Oberman, Amy Nuttall, Bernard Cribbins, Larry Lamb, Garry Cooper, Nigel Cooke, Nigel Betts, Adrian Lukis, Michael Shaeffer, Samuel Oatley, Samuel Collings, Kevin Bishop, Leon Williams, Ishia Bennison.

It may have come too late for New Tricks to be come back after this particular run, the last words have pretty much been said on what has been a tremendous drama, however in Last Man Standing, the two part opener to what is the last series, the team have arguably their finest moment in the sun.

New Tricks: Last Man Standing. Television Review. full post

(437 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Life In Squares, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Eve Best, Phoebe Fox, Catherine McCormack, Lydia Leonard, Jack Davenport, Rupert Penry-Jones, James Norton, Ed Birch, Christian Brassington, Lucy Boynton, Andrew Havill, Sam Hoare, Eleanor Bron, James Clay, Deborah Findlay, Ron Heaps, Guy Henry, Edmund Kingsley, Anton Lesser, James Northcote, Emily Bruni, Edmund Digby-Jones, Guy Henry, Finn Jones, Adam Palsson, Simon Thomas, Elliot Cowan, Rosie Ede, Jenny Howe, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Marianne Oldham, Simon Thomas, Al Weaver.

 

Life In Squares, Television Review. full post

(447 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Partners In Crime: The Secret Adversary. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: David Walliams, Jessica Raine, James Fleet, Matthew Steer, Alice Krige, Clarke Peters, Jonny Philips, Paul Brennen, Mary Roscoe, Andrew Havill, Richard Dillane, Madeline Appiah, Catherine Harvey, Peter Vollebregt, Bentley Kim, Robert Whitelock, Samuel Oatley, Robert Horwell, Julian Rivett, Camilla Marie Beeput, George Taylor, Peter Gordon, Jamie Taylor, Ian Hogan.

The world has ever been thus mad and in a world of such insanity, where men’s alliances to their country and their values are turned upside down; the only thing to do is keep the faith and believe that all will come right in the end, not something that instantly comes to mind as the B.B.C. adapt the lesser of Agatha Christie’s works in Partners in Crime for the 21st Century audience.

Partners In Crime: The Secret Adversary. Television Review. full post

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

Ripper Street: The Beating of Her Wings. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothernberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Lydia Wilson, David Dawson, David Wilmot, Josh O’ Connor, Louise Brealey, John Heffernan, Anna Burnett, Charlie Creed-Miles, Richard Goulding, Phil McKee, Marie Critchley, Alicia Gerrard.

 

How far can a man be pushed before his breaking point is reached, before the Gods destroy and make mad? For Victorian Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, the Gods have been waiting a long time for the stretch of rope to uncoil to its full potential and take the man who has led H Division and the people of Whitechapel through so many crisis that the madness has almost taken on its own shadowy form; one in which now finally tears and severs.

Ripper Street: The Beating of Her Wings. Television Review. full post

(495 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Ripper Street: Whitechapel Terminus. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Lydia Wilson, David Wilmot, Clive Russell, David Dawson, Josh O’ Connor, Louise Brealey, John Heffernan, Leanne Best, Francis Magee, Raymond Waring, Dermot Magennis, Kelly Campbell, Anton Giltrap, Andy Giltrap, Andy Gathergood, Mark Mooney, Tim Hibbard.

 

There are moments when the general public must wonder what goes on in between the ears of those in charge of the B.B.C. when they allow quality drama such as Ripper Street to be disavowed, to be treated to the point of shame that the makers must wonder what exactly they did wrong except bring in respectable audiences and the shuddering heads of yet another television expose into the world of drunken antics of the young and the restless takes their place in the schedules.

Ripper Street: Whitechapel Terminus. Television Review. full post

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

Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian Adventure. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

The age of the travel documentary is far from dead just because Michael Palin has stopped wandering the globe and giving fascinating insights to a world beyond the window and the clear glass of apathy that stops some from going past what they know and wish to experience. The genre hasn’t even begun to creak at the knees and suffer from the first signs of premature ageing and won’t do whilst there are people such as Joanna Lumley willing to back to the U.S.S.R and take the viewer on a trip through three countries and whole lot of miles in Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian Adventure.

Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian Adventure. Television Review. full post

(658 words, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell, Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Bertie Carvel, Eddie Marsan, Marc Warren, Charlotte Riley, Alice Englert, Samuel West, Enzo Cilenti, Paul Kaye, Edward Hogg, Brian Pettifer, Ariyon Bakare, Vincent Franklin, John Heffernan, Richard Durden, Robbie O’ Neil, John Sessions, Clive Mantle, Lucinda Dryzek, Ronan Vibart.

 

For all the other channels and subscriber based ways of watching television, for all the smoke and mirrors of television programmes being played out endlessly and arguably without diligence and care for the viewers intelligence, when the B.B.C. gets something completely right it normally becomes the best thing to have been seen in the comfort of your armchair all year and in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell such worthy praise and lofted heights is needed.

Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell, Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(564 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

The Game, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Tom Hughes, Jonathan Aris, Brian Cox, Victoria Hamilton, Shaun Dooley, Paul Ritter, Chloe Pirrie, Rachel Stirling, Zana Marjanovic, Yevgeni Sitokhin, Judy Parfitt, Marcel Lures, Tim Bentinck, Gemma Chan, Jay Simpson, Anton Lesser, Craig Conway, Scott Handy, Richard McCabe, Alistair Petrie, Steven Mackintosh.

 

The Game, Television Review. full post

(533 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Gotham, Series One. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10

Cast: Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, Erin Richards, Robin Lord Taylor, David Mazouz, Zabryna Guevara,  Sean Pertwee, Camren Bicondova, Cory Michael Smith, Victoria Cartagena, Andrew Stewart-Jones, John Doman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Nick D’Agosto, Morena Baccarin, Chelsea Spack, Richard Kind, Clare Foley, Carol Kane, Peter Scolari, Milo Ventimiglia, Julian Sands.

Gotham, Series One. Television Review. full post

(678 words, estimated 2:43 mins reading time)

Inspector George Gently: Son Of A Gun. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Jody Latham, Elizabeth Carling, Simon Hubbard, Danny Cunningham, Patrick Mcnamee, Annabel Scholey, Tom Hutch, Emma Lundy, Rosie Wyatt, Lucian Msamati, William Graham, Paul Hamilton.

 

For every generation must come a time when it watches those who will replace them with wonder, dread and in some cases frightened to death of what will happen to them and those not wishing to follow in their size nines. For those that lived through the Second World War and fought for the peace that was won afterwards, to see the actions of some of the young, untempered by the hardships and reality of fighting against an enemy that wanted to destroy you but who in turn wanted to sweep away everything that you had fought desperately for, must have been like watching a tidal wave of exhausting hatred and bile.

Inspector George Gently: Son Of A Gun. Television Review. full post

(546 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)