Little by little,
it, for it
deserves no other name,
eats away at me, stripping bare
my resolve and my will,
my own mind, my thoughts
of which I knew I was right
even when others treated me like dirt,
my apologies, sincere, full of self loathing
because I had hurt someone…
little by little it is being sapped away
and in it, I hate.
I hate what it is doing to my body,
I hate the small changes
the blood appearing in my piss,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Anton Lesser, Sean Rigby, Dakota Blue Richards, James Bradshaw, Sheila Hancock, Sara Vickers, Alex Mann, Simon Meacock, Caroline O’Neill, Natalie Burt, Michael Pennington, Joanna Horton, Jane Whittenshaw, Chris Coghill, Emily Forbes, Grahame Fox.
It can never be too much of a coincidence that in times of deep disharmony, of scaremongering and deep fear biting at the ankles of those immersed in watching world events, that a television drama, even of the murder/crime genre, can take you back to the roots of the nuclear power debate and show just how close such thinking can wreck the environment and kill thousands of people if there was an accident or act of sabotage.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The Queen of British Blues, the undoubted reigning monarch playing the guitar as if it was permanently attached to her, never letting go, never surrendering the pinnacle in which she has rightly attained; this is the realm of Joanne Shaw Taylor, a woman of creative Blues and the Queen of the Birmingham Town Hall.
A train of Jackdaws
hopped on stiletto claw on board
the fifteen forty out of Wolverhampton,
bob tails waggling, beaks opening with wild
inquisitive shrills,
their voices
displaying nothing but the search for worms
in the dirt, the mud a step too far
for the preening old birds
with florescent feathers,
the odd battle scar where the edges were ripped
as they tussled and tore at life…
Finding water
unpalatable, the inexhaustible selfie
drags itself once more into existence
and the high pitched squeal of bird like delight
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Kathryn Chambers, Tom Platt, Vikki Earle, Tom Cavendish, Danny Fahey, Lauren Molyneux, Liz Blake, Joey Wishwell, Alec Walters.
Noises Off is one of those gems of a production that an audience can never be introduced to enough, a true blend of British stoicism in the face of absolute charade, a play that revels in its mayhem and one that if you haven’t laughed at during spells doom for British theatre; in much the same way that the ravens learning they can leave the Tower of London would spell the end of centuries tradition, so to if not laughing at arguably one of the great comedies of all time would cause a rip in the curtain of the English language.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewan Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Steve Robertson, Shirley Henderson, Kelly McDonald, Gordon Kennedy, Anjela Nedyalkova, James Cosmo, Katie Leung, Thierry Mabonga, Scot Greenan, Irvine Welsh, Pauline Turner, Eileen Nicholas, Kyle Fitzpatrick.
We are the wise women,
We know more than we think,
Perceive more than realise,
Are capable of more than we expect,
We are the wise women,
We can change the world
If we support each other,
Encourage each other,
Allow ourselves to be used as stepping stones,
Provide a foothold for other wise women
Or reach out a helping hand,
We are the wise women,
We set the world to rights,
No more content with just “pretty”,
No more content with comfortable,
A stomach growl, felt the stab
of indiscriminate pain
that has wandered my body
all of my life, and it froze
causing me terror at
one thirty A.M. no addiction.
Turning on the radio to wipe
away the sweet sweat, I hear that you had died
and grief, just as painful
washed over me,
I was blessed to have existed
when you had lived,
I wouldn’t change that for the world.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Eleanor Nelly has been a woman to watch on stage for an awful long time, anybody who has the slightest idea of what makes somebody so eminent, so very cool as a performer will understandably nod their head in satisfaction and admiration when the young lady’s name comes up in conversation. To be held in such high esteem in Liverpool, the city in which she comes from and by people that have the pleasure, the honour of writing about and performing music in the city day in day out, it comes as no surprise that the talent, the sheer and exhausting hard work has paid off for Eleanor as she takes the next step in being signed to a major label, Decca.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
At the end of the world, what lullabies would you sing those who you love and what songs of anger would you chant with fingers pointed at those who have done you wrong; any decent person would probably suggest that the two somehow meld into one, that you treat those who have done you disservice the generosity of forgiveness in such bleak times, after all, the music is there to build bridges not hate. Despite it all music is a savior and perhaps a guiding light in a world of Modern Ruin.