Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It could be argued that all that matters is the here and now, that life in many ways has become an intransigent, almost rushed and unforgiving monster, one that snarls in pain when plans in the future are discussed, one that relishes the heartaches of the past and makes the thinker and the voyeur gnaw away at their own soul in a kind of perpetual madness.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
No matter the state of the world, you can rely on music to bring you to a point where anything is achievable, where the voices that were thought to be silent, mute, hushed in their anger, are raised to the place where barriers are broken, where the noiseless find public outcry and opinion is against them.
The state of the world as we see it as we come to the end of this century’s second decade, is in flux, it hangs its head in shame at the actions taken by those we placed trust in, and those who should know better, it is the Blue Lights that will carry us hopefully from them, it is the Blue Lights that prove that Fiction Lies, that deceit will never prosper.
Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses…
the centre of a sentence and sonnet of hope
that I memorised from childhood
and in which I vowed to witness
with my own eyes
when I finally
plucked up the courage to ask the lady to dance
with me, an immigrant
who wasn’t tired, was not poor,
had nobody to huddle with, but who
yearned to break free…New Colossus
on a distant shore, how, I hope,
you now weep angel as your promise
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Any anniversary reached is worth commemorating, however there is something inspiring about reaching 50 years of artistic endeavour, of finding that what you may have first laid down in the heat of a moment’s love, regret, resentment or happiness, is what has driven you onwards ever since; that first scribbled line as you declared your feelings towards a person or the wrath of government, that is the flourish in which you always try to capture and see as a daily, monthly or yearly Welcome to Anniversaryville.
Liverpool Sound And Vision Rating * * * *
To have any chance of success you need more than just the good will of one person in your corner; it is a sad state of affairs when a person’s voice in the modern world is drowned out by the flippant and the scratch your head unseemly. It is arguably the way of society now that has seen fit to laud the plastic and false and ignore the positive, the heroines and heroes to whom might get overlooked. To be in a million, or even 5 or 5000, requires people to open their hearts and their ears and allow the music to flow properly and with passion.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is beauty in anarchy, even when the art involved might not seem as though it has a rebellious bone in its body, anarchy doesn’t have to be the great swathe of civil disorder, it must though lead to a renaissance of thought, no punches thrown, no fires started and glass smashed, all that is required in an age of illumination, is to see art explode like a bomb in the mind and the fallout scatter around enough to contaminate with fresh ideas all that come into contact with it.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Abigail McKenzie, Mike Sanders, Mark Holland, Charlotte Melville, Allan Nicol, Hayley Thompson, Caitlin Mary Carley Clough, Oliver John Lawrensen, Jessica Olwyn, Sam Walton.
With 2018 marking the centenary of voting rights for women and signalling the advent of the #metoo movement, the timing of Make It Write Productions’ Virago – four one-act plays focussing on formidable females – is savvy to say the least, as is executive producer Sharon Colpman’s diverse selection of scripts.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
As we grow older, we often forget that it is our right to choose, that the heroines and heroes we look up to are nobody’s business but our own, that the way we live our lives, the hobbies, the personal items, the places we see and things we do, as long as we are not hurting someone else in the process, are our own validated memories to keep. The same goes for others, we have no right to implore our lives and likes onto them, for they stand also by the mantra, of Those They Chose.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
In the self-styled Theatre of Dreams, it is perhaps fitting that one American music legend can turn up to Old Trafford football ground, and with great artistic tongue in cheek, play to the local crowd’s hearts by performing the opening segments to the local anthem of the Stretford End faithful before hitting home with a set list that won’t be heard anywhere else in the country this year.
It could be viewed as a bucket list
romance, my eighty days
staring at you,
getting to know you,
understand you,
hate you,
love you,
be fond of you,
swear at the frustration you cause me,
gently run my fingers across you,
bash down when the right thought
does not come to mind,
hurt you, as you destroy me
become your mirror image, embrace you,
finally leave you be
as when the dog days of August
whimper in heat after snarling