Stuart Todd, The Leaving Of San Francisco. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The very name evokes images that split the heart, the mind and the emotions contained within. To some San Francisco is a by word of an era that never lived up to its potential, a symbolic gesture now dashed upon the rocks of commercialism, of a thought that has come to despise such notions of free love, radical politics and anti-war truth and made to cheapen them, made to see the age of Aquarius as nothing more than a desperate attempt to lead humanity away from the dogma of Capitalism.

Stuart Todd, The Leaving Of San Francisco. Single Review. full post

(378 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Sting Performs At The Maritime Museum As The Last Ship Comes To Liverpool.

From where Sting sat on his chair on the top floor of the Maritime Museum he could have looked out and witnessed a dock that was now home to small boat owners and had all the furnishings of renewal, a product of change, of one that was required to save an important link to the city of Liverpool’s past.

Sting Performs At The Maritime Museum As The Last Ship Comes To Liverpool. full post

(427 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

The Man Who Invented Christmas. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, Simon Callow, Justin Edwards, Morfydd Clark, Miriam Margolyes, Ian McNeice, Donald Sumpter, Cosimo Fusco, Bill Paterson, Miles Jupp, Annette Badland, Anna Murphy, Ger Ryan, John Henshaw, Ely Solan.

The modern notions of how we celebrate Christmas has come to divide the way we view the period which should be about decency, fairness and that seemingly old fashioned notion of goodwill to all. Some see it as an excuse for excess, some wallow in the frenzy and find their time afterwards beset in debt and worry, others perhaps arguably more at peace with their lot, just surround themselves with a smile, a memory of a loved one no longer in their sights and the hands of a loved one still by their side.

The Man Who Invented Christmas. Film Review. full post

(563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

The Disaster Artist. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Ari Graynor, Alison Brie, Jacki Weaver, Paul Scheer, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, June Diane Raphael, Megan Mullally, Jason Mantzouskas, Andrew Santino, Nathan Fielder, Joe Mande, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith, Bob Odenkirk, Kelly Oxford, Bryan Cranston.

The Disaster Artist. Film Review. full post

(534 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

The Culmination Of The Great Ice Cream War.

 

English towns and cities,

grassy, curtain twitching villages

very little play Hamlets

seem so ordered and logical

in how they are named,

how they gained their identity,

Ox-Ford, seemingly self explanatory,

Ply-mouth, a river runs through it,

Birmingham, named after a great Norman,

Wallsend-

a future prophecy in which the great

Ice Cream Wars finally came to pass.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017

Permanent link to this post (66 words, estimated 16 secs reading time)

The Jungle Book, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Joel Shipman as Baloo in The Jungle Book at The Unity Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Brian Roberts.

Cast: Fionnuala Dorrity, Asif Majid, Samuel Pérez Durán, Joe Shipman.

The tale of a lost boy raised by wolves, taught by a panther, guarded by a bear and hunted by the king of the jungle, it is story that speaks down through the last century and one that resonates with joy and charm, with meaning, still to this day. The Jungle Book, arguably one of the most loved pieces of literature of the late 19th Century has had its followers, those who bang the drum for its introduction of its well written characters into the national thought and understandably its detractors who see the book with a certain 21st Century outlook compared to its original sentiment.

The Jungle Book, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(489 words, 1 image, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

The Spook School, Could It Be Different. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

We live thankfully in an age when being different is not only accepted, but it is celebrated as well. Culturally, aesthetically, outward looking, inward felling, to be diverse, to want to show your true self to the world is not only healthy but it is right. The rights of many have come a long way but perhaps arguably not far enough and as the songs of The Spook School’s third album heavily persuade, Could It Be Different, well we can all but hope that humanity steers itself in the right direction.

The Spook School, Could It Be Different. Album Review. full post

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

Midlane, The Bitter Before The Sweet. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is a lesson we all hope we never have to experience, but there is no denying that we all go through it at some point or another and in the end the result can be one of relief, one of tender emotion, one of the most gigantic roar, like a bowler finally displacing the wicket of a troublesome and stubborn batsman or the surgeon expanding every piece of skill in her possession in removing a tumour; it is The Bitter Before The Sweet that makes life more optimistic, more fruitful and also a finer moment in which to give back with two fingers to those who caused harsh resentment in the first place.

Midlane, The Bitter Before The Sweet. Album Review. full post

(423 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Elijah James and The Nightmares, Live From Elevator Studios. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * * *

To have it all and yet be humble, to possess the voice and heart of a lion and yet be as sensitive as a field of poppies in full bloom or as wondrous as the first sighting of a masterpiece on an artist’s easel, to see it all unfold before your own eyes, that is one of the great gifts of existence and one that the music fan rarely gets to witness or the reader of poetry and the great British novel can only guess at.

Elijah James and The Nightmares, Live From Elevator Studios. E.P. Review. full post

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