Ripper Street: The King Came Calling. Episode Three, Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, Patrick Baladi, Amanda Hale, Jonathon Barnwell.

Whitechapel’s one and half square miles of intrigue, disorder and death goes hand in hand with its seemingly rich neighbourhood of the city of London, even in the late Victorian era of the 1880s. In the third episode of Ripper Street, The King Came Calling, the mixture of misplaced and intolerable idolism, the flowering shoots of social reform and murder are all presented in what is in effect the best part of the series so far.

Ripper Street: The King Came Calling. Episode Three, Television Review. B.B.C. Television. full post

(346 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

Lewis, Down Amongst The Fearful (Episode Two). Television Review. I.T.V.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kevin Whately, Laurence Fox, Clare Holman, Rebecca Front, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Beatie Edney, Emily Joyce, Tuppence Middleton, Neil Stuke, Edwin Thomas, Dominic Mafham.

Oxford may have its fair share of murders pro rata of population than almost anywhere in Europe aside from the towns that fall under Nordic Noir thrillers and Britain’s own Midsomer, but the way in which the police in that small but important county deal with the perpetrators is usually swift and to the point. The only trouble is that aside from the rumblings from within the colleges and pubs that run between the counties towns and villages of Bicester, Wendlebury, Launton and Woodstock is that the I.T.V. police drama of Lewis may be on hiatus for a while.

Lewis, Down Amongst The Fearful (Episode Two). Television Review. I.T.V. full post

(430 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Spies Of Warsaw, (Episode Two). Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Tennant, Janet Montgomery, Marcin Dorocinski, Linda Bassett, Piotr Baumann, Nicholas Blane, Kenneth Collard, Dan Fredenburgh, Adam Godley, Burn Gorman, Ellie Haddington, Julian Harries, Ann Eleonara Jorgensen, Radoslaw Kaim, Grzegorz Kowalczyk, Anton Lesser, Richard Lintern, Tuppence Middleton, Andrew Sachs, Fenella Woolgar.

The noose around Poland that was being held between Germany and Russia was getting ever tighter as the second and final part of Ian La Frenais and Dick Clements’ adaptation of Alun Furst’s novel Spies of Warsaw came to its conclusion.

Spies Of Warsaw, (Episode Two). Television Review. B.B.C. Television. full post

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

Cabin Pressure. B.B.C. Radio Four. Series Four Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Benedict Cumberpatch, Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole, John Finnemore.

The B.B.C. has always given comedy shows that gain a good following on the radio a big leg up to television when the time was right, the crossover a seamless and natural curve in the life of decent shows that grow up to big favourites on the small screen. From the days of Hancock’s Half Hour , the B.B.C. has nurtured the radio comedy like a gleaming talented child. It is a bit surprising to find that even after four series of the hilarious and cleverly written B.B.C. Four Extra programme Cabin Pressure, it still doesn’t seem to be any closer to getting the nod to transfer over.

Cabin Pressure. B.B.C. Radio Four. Series Four Review. full post

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

The Lady Vanishes. Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Tuppence Middleton, Tom Hughes, Selina Cadell, Keeley Hawes, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Stephanie Cole, Gemma Jones, Alex Jennings, Sandy McDade, Pip Torrens, Benedickte Hansen, Jesper Christensen, Charles Aitken, Zsuzsu David.

In the best traditions of Agatha Christie do others dare attempt to follow and for the second time since the definitive version directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938, The Lady Vanishes, originally written by Ethel Lina White, gets an all star treatment, a huge budget that would make some television and film directors wince at the thought at what they could achieve with a fraction and in the end whilst laudable unfortunately doesn’t stand up to any of the recent highs the B.B.C. has managed this year in its drama department.

The Lady Vanishes. Television Review. B.B.C. Television. full post

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

Doctor Who: The Bells Of Saint John. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman, Celia Imrie, Richard E. Grant, Robert Whitlock, Dan Li, Manpreet Bachu, Sean Knopp, James Greene, Geff Francis, Eve de Leon Allen, Kassius Carey Johnson, Danielle Eames, Fred Pearson, Jade Anouka, Olivia Hill, Isabella Blake-Thomas, Matthew Earley, Antony Edridge.

The new series, or should that be the second part of the previous series or even the build-up to the 50^th Anniversary of the longest running science fiction show on British television has returned after its winter sabbatical and it seems it is going to become about obsession.

Doctor Who: The Bells Of Saint John. Television Review. full post

(739 words, estimated 2:57 mins reading time)

Dean Friedman: Live Review. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool. (2025).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

A man can surely not be all things to all men, but he can be an architect, a painter, and a social commentator in one timeless motion, a thinker, a polymath of the soul to whom art captures the most seemingly everyday emotions and sights and turns them into a dramatic exercise of human observations and the nuance of portrayal of stories and weaved musical charm.

Dean Friedman: Live Review. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool. (2025). full post

(405 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Gary Moore: Live – From Baloise Session. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Some legends are taken far too early for the public to comprehend, the sense of unfinished business looms large in the conscious.

What we hold onto is the hope that those who have featured long in our lives have left us more than memories, they have squirreled away nuggets of gold in which the listener is given more than anticipated promise, they are endowed with faith; for the passing of a hero, especially one so prolific as one of the true greats of the Blues, Gary Moore, will always have something for the fans even in the event of Time’s inevitable passing.

Gary Moore: Live – From Baloise Session. Album Review. full post

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

I, Claudia: Storms & Silver Linings. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Storms gather, it is in the very fabric of existence that we must expect upheaval, but if we weather the storm, if we seize the silver linings on show as the lightning illuminates their positions and meanings to us, then we may find something unexpected, a tale of the unforeseen presented as a gift to us.

I, Claudia’s message in Storms & Silver Linings is one of impressionable intimacy, and for the woman behind the name, Claudia McKenzie, the intricacy of arrangements and vocals beguile the senses for the first time listener and confirm certainties of those who have followed the maker of the self-confessed chaos and essence.

I, Claudia: Storms & Silver Linings. Album Review. full post

(344 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

The Hollow Crown, Henry IV Part One. B.B.C. Television Review.

Originally published by L.S. Media. July 11th 2012

L.S. Media Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Julie Walters, Maxine Peake, Tom Georgeson, Simon Russell Beale, Alun Armstrong, Joe Armstrong, Harry Lloyd, Michelle Dockery, Robert Pugh.

If the first in the B.B.C.’s Hollow Crown adaptations of William Shakespeare’s history plays Richard II focused on the nature of chivalry in the time of noble kings, then the second, Henry IV, Part One focused on the story of what was too come. With an elderly Henry on the throne of England and with the playboy Prince of Wales taking up with thieves, robbers and undesirables in the taverns of Cheapside, it was more of an eye on how the boy, one of the best loved characters in Shakespeare and royal history, became the man he was to become.

The Hollow Crown, Henry IV Part One. B.B.C. Television Review. full post

(483 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)