Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams: The Commuter. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Timothy Spall, Tuppence Middleton, Anthony Boyle, Rudi Dharmalingam, Rebecca Manley, Anna Reid, Hayley Squires, Tom Brooke.

We are all just passengers here, a short lived journey through Time, a fleeting preoccupation with the memories we create, the interaction we subject ourselves too in the search for happiness; sometimes it is all just too much and the lies and the truth of what have become jumbled, we wish for a time when being content is all consuming.

Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams: The Commuter. Television Review. full post

(420 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Every Night I Say Sweet Dreams.

Every night

I say sweet dreams, I check

the room for spiders

and walking beasts that might scare

you, I wipe gently

the crusts from your eye

and tickle your nose

and it is that holds me

together, for a while

but then I see the papers,

and I know I fight my own

losing battle each night,

a small war, a territory

lost in the middle of screams,

silent and rubble

built back over night

to show a smile to the world;

Every Night I Say Sweet Dreams. full post

(104 words, estimated 25 secs reading time)

Justin Hayward, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. (2017).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Justin Hayward at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, September 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

If music doesn’t move you enough to feel the cold truth of tears that run down your face, that if the art doesn’t make your heart feel the kindness, the brutality, the sensation and the despair that makes life such a gift to have in the palm of the hand; then perhaps it could be argued that you just haven’t found it yet, you haven’t found the moment which makes the tears of joy and pain of love mingle and gently swim from your eyes.

Justin Hayward, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. (2017). full post

(502 words, 1 image, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Belinda Carlisle, Wilder Shores. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The young angry punk and rock rebel may have long since changed, morphed and become the sophisticated and worldly embracing lady of music, but there is always a twinkle in the eye of anyone who was blessed with the urge to rebel, to see beyond the straight and narrow and embrace the chance to witness the Wilder Shores that is denied to so many because they cannot sense how enormous or how exciting it is.

Belinda Carlisle, Wilder Shores. Album Review. full post

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

Home Again. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Reece Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, Nat Woolf, Lake Bell, Pico Alexander, Candice Bergen, Lola Flanery, Jon Rudnitsky, Reid Scott, Josh Stamberg.

It is a struggle at times to show sympathy to someone who is intent on hurting themselves artistically, to whom the relationship between film lover and the offering on the screen is far below par and mainly due to the insistence of saccharine in the diet, leaves you feeling sluggish, desperate for something, anything to add a punch to overload placed before you. It is a struggle but one that seems to be forever on the menu, just slightly dished up in a different casing, in numerous sweet deserts, it is the feeling that you are Home Again and nothing has truly changed.

Home Again. Film Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Paying Dues.

 

Of course I am always broke,

try being a poet

and paying off your dues

the old fashioned way,

try being a writer

and

finding that the dues

always have interest

from their end attached

and then see how

that work out;

cards stacked against

lower class

as you get told

just think of the exposure.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017

Permanent link to this post (64 words, estimated 15 secs reading time)

The Bitterest Pill Is To Be Found In Skelmersdale This October.

 

A blind date, a wedding, a Gypsy curse and a longed for baby…

Presented by Gary Skyner Productions, the debut performance of The Bitterest Pill tells the story of how one small tablet changed a family forever.  When Frances gave birth to her son Gary, she knew her life was about to change, but not in the way she expected.  Gary was born with severely deformed upper limbs, Frances could think of nothing but taking her child home and looking after him. Her husband Brian had different ideas – an institution was the best place for Gary, to allow the young couple to get on with their lives and have another child.  Frances refused.

The Bitterest Pill Is To Be Found In Skelmersdale This October. full post

(259 words, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

It Is Time For Revolution This October At The Casa.

The momentous events of the Russian Revolution depicted on stage in a combination of drama, reportage and Greek-style Chorus along with song, dance, music and poetry.

An in-house, theatre production by the people of Burjesta Theatre, Revolution is based on multiple eye-witness accounts of those involved including John Reed’s legendary account ’10 Days That Shook the World’

Come see the extraordinary events of the revolution that Shook the World at The Casa and at the Salford Arts Theatre in November.

The Casa, Hope Street, Liverpool

Friday 20th, Saturday 21st, Tuesday 24th*, Wednesday 25th October, 7.30pm.

It Is Time For Revolution This October At The Casa. full post

(163 words, estimated 39 secs reading time)

A Police Baton Raised.

Police baton raised in Barcelona streets

and a point raised

is shouted down in Madrid

with force, with a flowering

of violence,

a crashing down

on someone’s head,

falling down,

falling down,

Spain’s soul

is in an unhappy state,

the homage to Catalonia

is lost in time,

falling down,

raised tempers, words of disrespect,

falling down, down

as anger flares and firemen and police clash,

how long before the baton becomes the gun

becomes the wood becomes the bullet

fired in the air, into

A Police Baton Raised. full post

(95 words, estimated 23 secs reading time)

Texas, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is the sense of power that a band can bring to the Philharmonic Hall which you could only wish that if bottling plants had the power, they might just have the sensation of the year, a sense of quality that should be available to all but in which seems to reside in those who have given their all. When a band like Texas come to Liverpool, the only response possible is to sit back, enjoy the ride and take note, for as all in the Philharmonic Hall were bound to say at the end of the night, this was a band who had tremendous fun.

Texas, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

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