Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Spring brings with it the chance to step out of the darkness and into the much valued light, the beauty of the season as flowers emerge, as new ideas take shape with optimism and hope, Spring really is the time when we can look to the heavens and find a sense of order that is always disguised by the cold and the miserable tastes of winter and its cloak of bitter, sinister gloom.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is parody, then there is worship, both perhaps from the same root, the same cared for bud growing with high aspirations in the soil, one though grows in a very different direction to the other, one can be twisted, bent out of shape and seen as more than the object of desire, the other can stand out and be seen arguably as a natural progression, the thought process that the original might have taken had it had an artist’s fertile imagination behind it.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The world can be cruel, not just physically but mentally as well, it is the realisation that in times of trauma, we might want to hide away, we might find the solace needed to repair ourselves and come out fighting but above else nobody wants to be lost forever, we just want to recover and Get Found.
Their marriage was always the cause
of an argument, how could it not be
when they were always at war before hand;
the union laid down with ambassadors
forever at the birthing suite,
ready with hot water and towels
as a procession of children followed
who all left home with a single
solitary finger raised in the air
as they eventually told their parents,
sometimes nicely, sometimes
through gritted teeth,
that they were old enough, mature enough
to break away and live on their own
The Conquest of the South Pole directed by Nick Bagnall, Liverpool Everyman Theatre. Photograph by Gary Calton.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Patrick Brennan, George Caple, Laura Dos Santos, Emily Hughes, Dean Nolan, Zelina Rebeiro, Keddy Sutton, Liam Tobin.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Harry Melling, Franco Nero, Ian McDiarmid, Angus Macfadyen, Daniel Huttlestone, Aleksander Joyanovic, Murray Melvin, Edward Ashley, Nicholas Grace, Raquel Arraes, Bobby Smalldridge, Nicholas Agnew, Frank Clem, Michael Ford-Fitzgerald, Johann Myers, Michael Jenn, Frank Cannon, John Sackville, Tom Mulheron, Adam Bellamy, Matthew Sunderland, Stacy Shane, Richard Buck, Siennah Buck, Barnaby Edwards, Brian Matthews Murphy, Bethan Coomber, Andrew McNeill, Tasmin Greene Barker, Michael McLaughlin.
I would wait a lifetime
to kiss you, to feel that tender skin
now sweet with middle age
and soon to become lined, matured,
taken beyond the late teen I knew
to the world of womanhood
and with the next step,
Time’s next artistic breath,
near dust, near rust, near the echo of the youthful
freckled girl I once dreamed of;
I would wait a lifetime to kiss you
as it would show we had lived all our lives
in each other’s company.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Etta James’s larger than life story is such that it could be the proud moment in a television schedule or a Box office hit at the cinema; one of the finest, most complete voice of Blues to have ever graced the stage, she ranks alongside the likes of Billie Holliday, Big Mama Thornton and Janis Joplin as the all-embracing women of the genre, somebody who truly lived the life, who gave their life to sing the Blues.
Up close
I cannot see the point,
I have become my own shadow
glowing with false fire
in the darkness;
tomorrow in the bright haze of sunshine
I will still spend my time
in that same comfort zone,
because that cloak raven black
is a friend to me.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Sometimes it takes scouring the very depths to come up above ground and be seen as the true star that you are; the height varies of course, some only have to plunge a couple of yards and they are doomed to never return, their ego, their blasé approach to life marking them out as ones who just don’t understand the Blues or the feeling of trying to better what was already seemingly perfect. For those that head 10,000 Feet Below the surface, who truly get to grips with their thoughts of pushing themselves beyond the expected, further than the ordinary, then that couple of miles journey is nothing; especially if it means soaring higher than ever.