Wicked, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Helen Woolf, Aaron Sidwell, Kim Ismay, Steven Pinder, Emily Shaw, Iddon Jones, Charli Baptie, Emily Olive Boyd, Georgia Rae Briggs, Jason Broderick, Samantha Brown, Hannah Cadec, Grace Chapman, James Davies –Williams, Howard Ellis, Amy Goodwin, Daniel James Greenway, Jack Harrison–Cooper, Charlie Karlsen, Nicole Lupino, Stuart MacIver, Stacey McGuire, Sara Morely, Paul Saunders, James Titchener, Helen Walsh, Amy Webb, Luke Woollaston, Benjamin Yates, Amy Ross, Nikki Bentley.

Wicked, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Platform Eight.

Your train comes in at just after eleven,

slow pull up on platform eight

old friend, a memory calling

at stations in between, past towns

we never visited, houses

and farms we would never see inside,

closed curtains cutting out the view,

our life open to exposure, scenes from

a life cut open

and bleeding slowly

on platform eight.

 

Ian D. Hall 2018

Permanent link to this post (67 words, estimated 16 secs reading time)

Judy & Liza, Theatre Review. Downstairs At The Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Emma Dears, Helen Sheals.

Music: Greg Palmer.

There are icons and then there are those who, thanks to maybe one performance, one shining brilliant moment captured on film or record, will forever be immortalised, their images seared into the minds of the public, even those who were not born when they tragically passed away, their attitude remaining an engraved line on the monument on how stars are born and their names becoming the epitaph of the age. It is both a warning to how lives can be snatched away and never be truly our own, and it can be the huge embrace of knowing how much a human being can be loved.

Judy & Liza, Theatre Review. Downstairs At The Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

For Schoolboy Yucks.

If for nothing other

than my own amusement

or schoolboy yucks,

may I implore,

or be so bold

to ask if the next body of gravel, dust

and surrounded by water

discovered in the world,

a sudden baby clump of Earth

driven out of the sea like Surtsey

in ’63, could be named

Noman…

 

Ian D. Hall 2018

Permanent link to this post (61 words, estimated 15 secs reading time)

Paint Your Wagon, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Nadia Anim, Emma Bispham, Richard Bremmer, Patrick Brennan, George Caple, Paul Duckworth, Marc Elliott, Cerith Flinn, Emily Hughes, Nathan McMullen, Zelina Rebeiro, George Rosheuvel, Keddy Sutton, Liam Tobin.

Band: George Francis, Rosalind Jones, Katie Foster, Matthew Henry, Alex Smith, Nick Anderson.

Paint Your Wagon, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

The Stranglers, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. (2018).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The Stranglers at the Liverpool Academy, March 2018. Photograph by Ian D. Hall

The next time the Beast from the East decides to make an appearance on Britain’s shores, the best form of defence against this cyclonic severe cold and snow would be to tap the resources of a room full of Stranglers fans and then allow the heat to pour out onto the streets in the surrounding areas; the cold of the last few weeks would not have stood a chance as they took in the sounds of a band still rightly considered, the definitive article.

The Stranglers, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. (2018). full post

(476 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Therapy?, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Therapy at the o2 Academy in Liverpool, March 2018. Photograph by Ian D. Hall

You can over analyse and seek treatment for almost anything, the small ailment through to the overriding sense of disassociation of the age, healing comes with talking and yet there is only one suitable cure for the way the world has turned, and a night of Therapy? is always the best of the Doctor’s orders.

Therapy?, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(450 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Marc Vormawah, Goodbye To Yesterday. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is an approach which gets overlooked in the days of rush and tumble, rhetoric and brimstone, we have become so used to looking forward, urged on by fashion and supposed urgency, that we have in many ways disregarded what was perhaps more important, to look back at our lives and see it for the genuine series of events which made us happy. Not so much a reminisce, or a clouded sepia tinged photograph buying us the moments lost, but more of listening back to our own stories, the once written down, perhaps recorded on a tape deck; when life was just life, not a quest in which to be downtrodden and beaten with a large stick if we are seen to be unproductive for an hour.

Marc Vormawah, Goodbye To Yesterday. Album Review. full post

(474 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Wilde Roses. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

There will always be those who skulk in the garden of ignorance, who believe that history gives us nothing, that all that matters is the here and now and the future, gleaming bright or near dystopia it matters not which, that history is the death knell for advancement and is embroiled in nothing but the view point of Kings. There will always be those who see anything that came before their existence as not worth bothering about, their point of view skewed by the inner nagging thought that they just don’t have the patience to know where we come from and where it has been taking us all along.

Wilde Roses. Album Review. full post

(448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

The Spear Of Destiny, Tontine. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is always in the hands of destiny, fortune, reputation, chance and fame to know just how you will have been received down the line; a classic band does not rely on those offerings alone of course, their sense of intelligent writing, music sensitivity and seizing the zeitgeist by the scruff of its hairy chin often play more of a part than the hopeful blessing spoken by some; and yet without it somehow it seems to not register just how great the band can be, how talismanic and intriguing they are.

The Spear Of Destiny, Tontine. Album Review. full post

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