Undercover-Close To Home. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ntombizodwa Ndlovu, Matthew McNulty, Bebe Massey, Taraq Al-Jeddal, Christine Bottomley, Esh Alladi, Emma Cunniffe, Kymberley Cochrane, Lula Marsh, Jessica Bellamy.

The rise in popularity in the true crime podcast is extraordinary and revealing.

Such revelations suggest much about the society we live in, and once where the murder mystery drama on television was seen as the preserve of the armchair detective pitting their wits against a writer who understands the genre as if they themselves were culpable of the crime committed, now the listener is rapt with attention as they look for the clues that might save their own life if they were plunged into a situation where their life might be in danger.

Undercover-Close To Home. Radio Drama Review. full post

(480 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

Of A Night. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Neil Caple, Sue Jenkins, Izzy Campbell, Jason Done, Emily Pithon, Paul Duckworth.

Our personal problems take precedence over that which we understand are important to other people, it is who we are as a species. During panic, in the most extreme moments of what our minds can cope with as desperation and hopelessness threaten to overwhelm us, our struggles will be seen as more important than that suffered by a neighbour, a friend, or even a nation.

Of A Night. Radio Drama Review. full post

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

Shard. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Damien Molony, Finbar Lynch, Rebecca O’Mara, Trevor Kaneswaren, Kitty O’ Sullivan, Will Kirk.

Our environment shapes us but are we willing to listen to demands that the Earth below our feet asks of us in return for the bounty it supplies. If we look upon the last couple of hundred years of abuse we have savagely wrecked upon the soil, the heavy metals we have allowed to poison our lands, the sheer scale of strain we have placed on that which feeds us, then its no wonder that it could be argued, that the earth has rejected us, and no amount of pleading or sacrifice made in arrears will satisfy or placate that which has been abused.

Shard. Radio Drama Review. full post

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

Gareth Heesom: There’s A Place. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Everyone that you encounter will arguably agree that as a music fan, the festival event is a particular experience that fills the mind and soul with something special, that no matter where, There’s A Place that sticks in the mind that nothing can ever replace,; a line-up that through the day, past the heat of the afternoon and long into the night’s blistering almost religious like fervour as the music roars, as the music leaves a shrine to your love and existence on this spinning ball.

Gareth Heesom: There’s A Place. Single Review. full post

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

Jake Aarons: Always Seeking. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Looking for something in the world that will take your mind off the diamonds you have neglected upon the way will have you Always Seeking where the dust has grown, and the riverbed has gone dry.

The vantage point of discovery is seemingly lost as time goes by, and yet if you understand that the waters of life are more valuable than that of mere trinkets and gems, then you know that the trail laid will always see you home; so that which you were seeking becomes a prized possession…the gift most loved, that of the sound of a human heart telling its story when you are ready to hear it being told.

Jake Aarons: Always Seeking. Album Review. full post

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

Gwenan Gibbard: Hen Ganeuon Newydd. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Those New Old Songs…they resonate in ways that beguiles the mind. For those that speak in a different language, where the vocal is coded in mystery to the non-native speaker, it is the universal that explains the words, and the feelings that are unearthed as it sways to the voice is where the listener finds their own explanation of why it captures their heart.

Gwenan Gibbard: Hen Ganeuon Newydd. Album Review. full post

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

The Pawn Shop Saints: Weeds. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We have been conditioned to believe that allowing weeds to grow is the product of an unproductive mind, that they destroy the love and attention bestowed on the colourful and popular plants; and by nature’s fancy, are to be chopped down with a vengeance that is akin to a biblical gesture of deliverance.

Weeds plays more than a part in the world, weeds are the first things we notice when the world insists it is too perfect for anything other than flawless; that the wild and uncontrollable, that the eager and hardy, those that withstand storms with greater ferocity deep in their stems must give way to fragile and dull, and often overhyped, flowers in the pristine soil.

The Pawn Shop Saints: Weeds. Album Review. full post

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

Sam Burton: Dear Departed. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Just as others see a version of us that even a close friend wouldn’t recognise by its description of our emotions and attitude, so we ourselves are confronted by a thousand facets of who we are when we gaze in the mirror or when we are startled by our reflection in a shop window when the bad hair day is the least of our social problems.

Sam Burton: Dear Departed. Album Review. full post

(435 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

D.E. McCluskey: The Boyfriend. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Horror may come in different guises, the simple fact that the most terrifying is that which comes close to home is what will scare you most.

You can read about mutant insects that make your skin scratch and itch as though they are running around in your body, you can feel the terror in the unexplained, the vampires, the ghouls, the psycho goblins, the spectres that float and the demons who will tear you limb from limb, but nothing comes close to the truth that fear is driven by the one that you invite into your home.

D.E. McCluskey: The Boyfriend. Book Review. full post

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

The Full Monty. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, Paul Barber, Steve Huison, Paul Clayton, Lesley Sharp, Miles Jupp, Talitha Wing, Natalie Davies, Tom Wilkinson, Sophie Stanton, Dominic Sharkey, Philip Rhys Chaudhary, Joshua Jo, Tupele Dorgu, William Fox, Aiden Cook, Hugo Speer, Wim Snape, Arnold Oceng, Susan Hilton, Bruce Jones, Jessica Lee, Emily Bevan.

Should we ever revisit a success?

The Full Monty. Television Drama Review. full post

(673 words, estimated 2:42 mins reading time)