Category Archives: TV

New Tricks: The Curate’s Egg. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Larry Lamb, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Adjoa Andoh, Anthony Calf, Tracy Ann Oberman, Percelle Ascott, Lloyd Everitt, Camilla Beeput, Ricky Nixon, Edmund Kente, Joan Blackham, Magdalena Kurek.

New team member, new ways of solving crimes, new quirks, new tricks; one old favourite team member departed and one brand new one in which to aid U.C.O.S’s efforts to solve the long since discarded crimes of London, it is after all a new day in the lives of some.

New Tricks: The Curate’s Egg. Television Review. full post

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

The Scandalous Lady W. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Natalie Dormer, Aneurin Barnard, Shaun Evans, David Calder, Craig Parkinson, Oliver Chris, Peter Sullivan, Jessica Gunning, Elizabeth Rider, Richard McCabe, Will Keen, Tom Edden, Alex Beckett, Thomas Coombes.

There are moments in British history that are so worth preserving that to make a film or an epic television programme about them seems the most natural thing in the world to attempt to do; some though should only be attempted if the right cast is put in place to make History real and not just to pull in viewers.

The Scandalous Lady W. Television Review. full post

(392 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Ripper Street: Ashes And Diamonds. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Lydia Wilson, David Wilmot, Clive Russell, David Dawson, John O’ Connor, Jason Manford, Louise Brealey, Anna Burnett, John Heffernan, Philip Arditti, Georgia Rich, Philip Judge, Sophia La Porta, Edgar Morton, Alicia Gerrard, Colin Alltree, Neil Broome.

Inspector Reid is missing and after the events in recent Whitechapel history it’s not a bad thing that his life is to be missing from the annals of the area’s police investigations, for who would trust a murderer, even one provoked, to carry out the biggest job in the London?

Ripper Street: Ashes And Diamonds. Television Review. full post

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

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)