Steve Cole, Doctor Who: Combat Magicks. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The long association of intertwining Earth’s history and the fictional lives of the Doctor has always been a passion of many of the fans of the television series of Doctor Who. An abundance of rich and varied accounts, the grand moments, the seemingly small and possibly inconsequential, all are ripe for exploring, for adding the most important of human instincts and emotions to what the chronicles will teach us; to enthuse imagination to any possible recorded scene and to question the authority of those that wrote it.

Steve Cole, Doctor Who: Combat Magicks. Book Review. full post

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

John January and Linda Berry, Chemistry 101. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The first lesson you should learn at school is not that you have to understand Chemistry, you should only need to know that you feel it, the interaction and the harmony available between the elements, that in science the first law of thermodynamics is arguably the most poignant when it comes to human relationships, that the energy of the Universe is constant; Chemistry 101 is the place where attraction is upbeat, passionate and altogether carrying a groove which holds temptation in its hands.

John January and Linda Berry, Chemistry 101. Album Review. full post

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

Tom Odell, Jubilee Road. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision 8.5/10

The consensus of inspiration always seems to be loudly asserted that the Muse requires the far-flung adventure or in-depth travelling life in which to gain inspiration to write, and whilst meeting new people, seeing impressive innovative in action and appreciating it with all your senses firing, occasionally all you need is to be able to look outside your own front door, to be able to witness the world turning from the comfort of a front-row seat beside your window; we can all find the Muse without going too far, we can all be part of a story going on down our street.

Tom Odell, Jubilee Road. Album Review. full post

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

The Birthday Party. Radio Play Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Toby Jones, Henry Goodman, Stephen Rae, Maggie Steed, Peter Wright, Jamie Winstone.

Harold Pinter’s first major play, The Birthday Party, has either captivated or underwhelmed audiences since it first came to the stage sixty years ago. Even in 2018 as it was revived with Zoe Wanamaker, Stephen Mangan and Pearl Mackie amongst its cast, it left confusion in its wake, taken to heart by many, but leaving some distrusting of the playwright’s ultimate question which never truly gets spoken out loud.

The Birthday Party. Radio Play Review. full post

(455 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

The Dead Room. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Simon Callow, Anjli Mohindra, Susan Penhaligon, Joshua Oakes-Rogers.

It was turn of the 20th Century author M.R. James who asserted that the spectres within a ghost story should always have malevolent intent if the story is to work, if it is to prick the conscious of the reader and give them the type of scare in which boundaries are crossed between the world we see and the domain of the dead.

The Dead Room. Television Review. full post

(488 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Agatha And The Art Of Murder. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Ruth Bradley, Ralph Ineson, Tim McInnerny, Blake Harrison, Pippa Haywood, Michael McElhatton, Bebe Cave, Brian McCardie, Dean Andrews, Samantha Spiro, Stacha Hicks, Liam McMahon, Joshua Silver, Luke Pierre, Seamus O’ Hare, Clare McMahon, Amelia Dell, Derek Halligan, Richard Doubleday.

Nobody truly disappears without a reason, whether it is in the spirit of foul play, a release from the pressure of life, or in the act of rage fuelled revenge, people don’t vanish from public life unless there is a motive lurking under the soil of the person’s existence in which leads to the art of murder being employed.

Agatha And The Art Of Murder. Television Review. full post

(630 words, estimated 2:31 mins reading time)

Watership Down (2018). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, John Boyega, Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton, Peter Capaldi, Mackenzie Crook, Anne-Marie Duff, Taron Egerton, Freddie Fox, Lee Ingleby, Miles Jupp, Daniel Kaluuya, Craig Parkinson, Daniel Rigby, Jason Watkins, Gemma Chan, James Alexander, Rosamund Pike, Andrew Walton, Olivia Colman, Lorraine Bruce, Rosie Day, Henry Goodman, Murray McArthur, Tom Wilkinson, James Faulkner, Lizzie Clarke, Rory Kinnear, Charlotte Spencer, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Peter Guinness, Sam Redford, Luke Neal.

Watership Down (2018). Television Review. full post

(509 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Upstart Crow: A Crow Christmas Carol. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: David Mitchell, Kenneth Branagh, Liza Tarbuck, Tim Downie, Harry Enfield, Gemma Whelen, Lily Cole, Dominic Coleman, Jocelyn Jee Esien, Mark Heap, Rob Rouse, Steven Speirs, Spencer Jones, Helen Monks, Paula Wilcox, Rosanna Beacock, Hannah-Jane Fox, Karl Theobald, Luka Petrovic.

Words, songs, and inspiration hang in ether waiting for the right ear in which to discern their meaning, what though a clever mind can deduce is sometimes another soul will mark them with greater solemnity, the time is not always right – and the words are heeded, but allowed with great wishes and understanding to find another home in which to be born, another time in which the need is nobler, the suffering of the people more acute.

Upstart Crow: A Crow Christmas Carol. Television Review. full post

(504 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Take Me To Hope Street. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Annabelle Dowler, Shaun Mason, Laura Dos Santos, Ian Conningham, Monty d’Iverno, Jane Slavin, Lile Marie Gibney.

There are many ways in which to celebrate or commemorate Christmas, chiefly amongst them is the act of memory, of remembering all those who have come into your life over the years but who, for whatever reason, have slowly disappeared from it, an act of forgiveness perhaps required on your part for the wrong they may have caused you, a meaningful gesture from the depths of your soul as you seek to be pardoned from the inappropriate action you may have caused distress with. It is though the act of forgiving yourself in which the time of year holds its greatest fear, a dread in which few are willing to face, and in which the Christmas ghost story deals with in spine-tingling relish.

Take Me To Hope Street. Radio Drama Review. full post

(489 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Looking For Oil Drum Lane. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Marc Wootton, Barry Castagnola, James Hurn, Phil Cornwell, Ian Pearce, Toby Longworth.

It has been observed that the closest occupation resembling death, is that of writing. The endless search for inspiration is consuming, an overwhelming, often fearful, unbearable shadow in which the writer sees only blankness before them. It is a struggle that requires discipline, the ability to keep going in a desert of solo thought, and fortune to come up with an idea that, if you are lucky, will grip the nation in tears, or with hope in laughter.

Looking For Oil Drum Lane. Radio Drama Review. full post

(568 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)