Doctor Who: The Shining Man. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The woods hold an allure over the minds of humanity that no concrete jungle can ever be seen as being able to convey; a building in darkness may have the element of danger attached to it, even perhaps an ingredient of peril, of intruding into the majesty of the mind which first envisioned the structure, yet a wood holds mystery that cannot be tamed, that cannot, unless we butcher our surroundings, be completely seen, the wood has many eyes and each one of them is trained upon the stranger who knows not where the traps are laid.

Doctor Who: The Shining Man. Book Review. full post

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

The House That Lost Weight.

Bin bags galore, lined up drunkenly spewing

the whiff of loaded down hoarding,

a symptom of the black I have been touching,

holding close, I want

to let go.

No council name or number

blazed across the thin plastic coating,

an advertising sign

coated in the decay of years

that the item inside has been lost

but holding ground, a black hole swallow

and burp now tied together with string,

a promise in the knot that this is the last time

I hold such antique thoughts and treasures

The House That Lost Weight. full post

(111 words, estimated 27 secs reading time)

Endeavour: Colours. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Sean Rigby, Anton Lesser, Dakota Blue Richards, Lewis Peek, James Bradshaw, Abigail Thaw, Sara Vickers, Caroline O’ Neil, Jack Bannon, Lee Armstrong, Greg Austin, Dominic Carter, Steven Elder, Claire Ganaye, Caroline GoodaLL, Marcus Griffiths, Leo Hatton, Sam Marks, Ian Pirie, Robert Portal, Jules Robertson, Rebecca Saire, William Scott-Masson, Ray Sesay, Bert Seymour, Dominic Thorburn.

 

Endeavour: Colours. Television Review. full post

(551 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Graveyard Love.

 

Standing end on end in graveyards,

The near dead adorn their resting place

with words, with their sentence

of death inscribed

and dated, stamped, remembering the last time

they were thought of

fondly, with fingers quivering

with anticipation, their spines

still erect, still perfect,

but like anything that breathes life,

soon will fade, soon will lose their meaning,

their passion

as younger, more tempting words

are echoed and brushed against

closed dreaming eyes and the smell

of the new and intoxicating

Graveyard Love. full post

(163 words, estimated 39 secs reading time)

The City And The Value Of Things, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Ruby Bains, Natalie Barton, Leonardo Bertamini, Ellen Boyland, Erin Clarke, Kathleen Collins, Alice Corrigan, Callum Crighton, Stuie Dagnall, Sophie Edmunds, Joseph Edwards, Spike Fairclough, Will Flush, Neve Frost, Leah Gould, Tilly Harrison, Jasmine Hayes, Jake Holmes, Emily Horrex, Poppy Hughes, Chloe Hughes, Hannah Jennings, Kieran Kidd, Emily Lloyd, Luke Logan, Georgie Lomax-Ford, Frank McGuire, Charlotte Manuel, Aimee Marnell, Niamh McCarthy, Lizzy Meadows, Kaylee-Anne Meredith, Jack Malloy, Ciara Moriarty, Azarias Morris, Chloe Nall-Smith, Rachel Newnham, Courtney Parry, Luke Patterson, Jamie Pye, Keeley Ray, Marry Roberts, Nathan Russell, Samuel Serrano Roberts, Kalia Sharples, Sakura Singh Corke, Mica Skeete, Katie Smith, John Stephenson, Ellie Turner, Laura Tyrer, Natalie Vaughan, Campbell Wallace, Owen Walsh, Tommy Williams, Matthew Woodhouse.

The City And The Value Of Things, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(618 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

I, Tonya, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Julianne Nicholson, Paul Walter Hauser, Bobby Cannavale, Bojana Novakovic, Caitlin Carver, Maizie Smith, Mckenna Grace, Joshua Mikel.

Life is a circus that is often played out to the tune of someone else’s calling, rebel in any shape of form, become a thorn in the side of authority, and you end up paying the heaviest of penalties, whether you deserve them or not. To rebel against the system is everyone’s right, find your own tune to dance to, but when it goes wrong, there is nothing you can do but blame yourself.

I, Tonya, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(577 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Lady Bird, Film Review. Picturehouse @ F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalameth, Beanie Feldstein, Lois Smith, Stephen Henderson, Odeya Rush, Jordan Rodrigues, Marielle Scott, John Karna, Jake McDorman, Laura Marano.

The name that you call yourself is the promise that you make to stay individual, to stand out perhaps in the town where everybody knows your business, to put a stamp of your own authority and control on a part of life that either has you placed down as a trouble maker or as a romanticised character.

Lady Bird, Film Review. Picturehouse @ F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

…And I Set Fire To The Grass.

…and I set the grass on fire

out in the meadow

in the hope of raising smoke signals

so you might see my concerns,

you left me without defences, no timber

to build shelter, no army to stand alongside,

only hope that once the short fuse

was lit, that the grass grew black

and blazed for a second or two

before burning out

you might find the signal

as it melted away

into the clouds above.

 

Ian D. Hall 2018

…And I Set Fire To The Grass. full post

(83 words, estimated 20 secs reading time)

The Wedding, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Performers: Lucia Chocarro, Fionn Cox-Davies, Chris Evans, Madeleine Fairminer, Anna Finkel, Amit Lahav, Katie Lusby, Ryen Perkins-Gangnes, Uros Petronijevic, Dan Watson, Kenny Wing Tao Ho.

We are all slaves to one kind of dance or another, even the most freest of souls have to answer to some faceless leader who marks out the time between the tick and the tock with a sense of rhythm, from birth to the time of our death, we are married to life, to a job, to the system, and it is only over time that we lose the affection for the wedding dress and the all trimmings we associate with ignorance and purity and begin to see the faceless ones who call the tune as nothing more than puppets themselves.

The Wedding, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(400 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Port Cities, Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When one thinks of Canada, one might find the mind wandering through dense forests in which the native tribes that called the country their own observed with care, with respect. One might think of the rugged coast lines, of fairness, of opportunity, of the pioneering spirit that arguably went beyond what the European settlers carved out as they punched holes into the very nature and balance, of great men and women who have sewn their name into the fabric of a country that is now over a 150 years old in name, of towns such as Hamilton, of Toronto and the great Port Cities.

Port Cities, Album Review. full post

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