The Illegal Eagles, Gig Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. (2017).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The Illegal Eagles, Liverpool Empire Theatre, June 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

There are times in life when you cry over a fallen hero, a family member who did something pretty amazing with their life or was just selfless in making sure that yours was not shrouded in pity and the bleak, a conqueror of the stage who you saw perform without mercy and who never knew you were there in shadows being moved by the simple raised eyebrow or the manner of their walk, the musician to whom The Long Road out of Eden was not just lived but taken to heart; it is O.K. to cry over a fallen hero, for it shows the effect they had on shaping your life.

The Illegal Eagles, Gig Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. (2017). full post

(517 words, 1 image, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Secret Colours, Dream Dream. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If you dream, make sure it is every colour available, don’t settle for black and white and don’t let anything but a magical experience take you down in the hands of Morpheus willingly or without a fight, to dream is to be thankful, to Dream Dream well that is a case of allowing the brain to undergo some sort of state where metamorphosis reigns supreme.

Secret Colours, Dream Dream. Album Review. full post

(360 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Doctor Who, Empress of Mars. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, Anthony Calf, Ferdinand Kingsley, Richard Ashton, Adele Lynch, Glenn Spears, Ian Beatie, Bayo Gbadamosi, Ian Hughes, Lesley Ewen, Ysanne Churchman.

 

The road to Empire, as the American band Eagles once sang, is a bloody stupid waste, yet almost country in Europe has hand in its senselessness and shame and there are a few notable countries around the world that still would find the appetite to bring back what should be a dead and buried black mark around humanity’s history.

Doctor Who, Empress of Mars. Television Review. full post

(517 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Paula, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Cast: Denise Gough, Tom Hughes, Owen McDonnell, Siobhan Cullen, Sean McGinley, Aoibhinn McGinnity, Jane Brennan, Emily Taaffe, Ameilia Metcalfe, Jonny Holden, Edward MacLiam, Ciarán McMenamin, Aislin McGuckin, David Herlihy, Rachael Dowling, Marty Maguire, Dylan Breen, Gary Liburn, David Pearse.

 

It is infuriating when a drama on television cannot decide if it is one thing or another, especially when in theory the premise of the story is not bad, a light entertainment by the small screen and one willing to find a way to bring a necessary point of view to the adult conversation. Yet in Paula, the makers of the programme managed to make a perfectly good idea somehow unpalatable, degrading and almost thrown straight into the bin where all other nonsense is kept.

Paula, Television Review. full post

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

Political Send-Up.

There is no room

left in the world

for Spitting Image

to belong back on television;

Westminster

has finally

revealed itself

to be the finest

satirical sketch show

there is,

and with some great

puppets

at the helm.

Ian D. Hall 2017

Permanent link to this post (44 words, estimated 11 secs reading time)

Dust Mites.

It is a moment of time that stretches

and is lost forever,

gone are the days

when my name ran readily

off your lips and all I could do

was let you love me, let you protect

me, now

instead the faint whisper down the phone

as my first name is met with silence,

puzzlement, an abandonment

of once proud Feminist teaching;

now…

 

I am dust…

 

to you,

 

forgotten memory slides away,

the smile of a boy

lost

Dust Mites. full post

(112 words, estimated 27 secs reading time)

Omnibus, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Alice Bunker-Whitney in Omnibus. Photograph by Brian Roberts.

 

Cast: Gemma Banks, Alice Bunker-Whitney, Eva McKenna, Joel Parry, Danny Burns, Eithne Browne.

It is always a cause for celebration when a production comes to the stage and truly brings an audience together in its humour and the way it showcases new writing, the positive ways it uses all the actors with equal clarity and the wonderful way in which it shows the genuine appreciation due its Director. When that celebration coincides with the soft re-opening of a much loved theatre after months of renovation and updating, then it is not just a case of bring out the decorations and congratulations, then it is the keen observance and salute that only an Omnibus can provide.

Omnibus, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(408 words, 1 image, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Field Of Wheat.

Field of wheat, what did you do

to deserve being run through

by the chaff of this land,

did you ask for the vicar’s daughter

to act like a combine harvester,

to terrorise you, to rampage through

your hard work and denigrating you

into letting go of the nourishing wheat,

the hard decision in which one to save

because the footsteps, the running chaff,

tore at your foundations,

wiped out the hope of food for all

and allowed the following magpies,

black and white hedge head hunters

Field Of Wheat. full post

(119 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)

The Black Watch, The Gospel According To John. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

From whence you came is but where you shall return, in the case of L.A. based band The Black Watch, the line in between the two is so strong, so distinct that it sends out its own pulse. It gives and receives the punches as if it had got between the Ice Hockey players of Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings in a match which decided arguably the finest boxer on skates, so well that it comes away without being either bloodied or bruised and is testified with honour in The Gospel According To John.

The Black Watch, The Gospel According To John. Album Review. full post

(369 words, 1 image, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)