Angus Smith And North 56, One Day. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The fusion of Rock and language, the guitar simmering with excitement as the prospect of a different voice cutting along its strings is too much to contain at times and yet we find we must sit in the dark, compelled to only love what we love and never venturing forth into another realm, always content in what we know, always stuck in a pattern that is so familiar that we can almost wear it as an outfit and go out about our business assured that nobody would stop us to remark on our choice of outerwear.

Angus Smith And North 56, One Day. Album Review. full post

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

Maze, Groundhog Day. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There is something about a new beginning that really sets the fires going, it gets underneath the skin and allows original perspective to take hold; nothing ever truly is let go in this new beginning but the freedom to be yourself is astonishing. Like being freed from a maze you had no idea you were in, to see the doorway open at the other end and enticing you try a different field, that must be the most liberating feeling of them all.

Maze, Groundhog Day. Single Review. full post

(342 words, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

Maigret: Dead Man. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Rowan Atkinson, Lucy Cohu, Shaun Dingwall, John Light, Mark Heap, Katia Bokor, Aiden McArdle, Karen Cagnon, Amber Anderson, Michael Fitzgerald, Ian Puleston-Davies, Peter Schueller, Hugh Simon.

There are many interpretations to any role, there are sublime ones and there are fresh readings, the ones that are arguably more remarkable because you know deep down the actor portraying the part has spent virtually all their lives preparing for the part and have therefore found the moment to give the exact reading the character deserves. For Rowan Atkinson, the role of Maigret must have played over and over again in his mind, the right nuance, the deliberate thought, the compassion, even to those in who do not deserve it, has to played just right and in the tale Dead Man, Rowan Atkinson plays Maigret with absolute conviction.

Maigret: Dead Man. Television Review. full post

(370 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

His Death Was Unexpected.

His death was unexpected,

in a year which had taken

an artistic hero of mine,

it was only in hindsight

that the quiet moment of finality

should take one of yours.

 

I did not grieve for the man you lost

as many tears had been spilled for the

musician that had abandoned me

but I mourned for the moment,

I stopped and immediately thought of you,

perhaps in your kitchen, holding a last cup

of tea on a busy day and the radio coming on

His Death Was Unexpected. full post

(146 words, estimated 35 secs reading time)

King Lear, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Don Warrington, Alfred Enoch, Mitos Yerolemou, Pepter Lunkuse, Rakie Ayola, Fraser Ayres, Norman Bowman, Thomas Coombes, Wil Johnson, Debbie Korley, Philip Whitchurch, Mark Springer, Rhys Bevan, Miles Mitchell, Sarah Quist, Sam Glen.

There are times when television isn’t brave enough to stand up to the dictum laid down by the B.B.C. at the beginning of its lengthy life span, to not only entertain and inform but also educate those willing to be edified in something other than endless reality programmes or the often insufferable endless round of celebrities plying their trade on panel games or news items. Yes it sticks the mission statement in many ways but the bravery is truly seen when it puts on its screens a captured live recording from a theatre of one of William Shakespeare’s more complex and lengthy plays.

King Lear, Television Review. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Matt Lucas, Justin Chatwin, Tomiwa Edun, Logan Hoffman, Aleksander Jovanovic, Lee Kemp, Charity Wakefield, Daniel Lorente, Sandra Teles, Tanroh Ishida.

The problem with having a year off is that it takes time for the mojo to get going again, the momentum of life is such that if you sit still long enough either you fade into obscurity or you show creaking signs of the love you have no longer being a fluid and marvellous thing. Momentum and timing is everything to a lot of people, especially in the world of fandoms; take time away and the spark can drift, even for the biggest and most dedicated of fans and when you finally do appear again, the result can be down at heel, not at your sparkling best.

Doctor Who: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio. Television Review. full post

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

A Single Track.

Nobody told me I couldn’t

so I walked along the single track,

a phantom sound

from somewhere close by

and the barb wire scratches the lens

of the camera as I try to take

a poignant picture; no guards,

the solemn vow of the past

being picked apart

rivet by rivet

as I get to about one hundred yards

down the track

and the fear still seeps through my shoes

as I imagine the terror that this final stop

in gas and smoke and bullet

A Single Track. full post

(101 words, estimated 24 secs reading time)

From Me To You (This Christmas).

There is no snow falling

through the air, softly and with delicate

dancing care,

there is no drifting smoke from a well stoked

fire keeping children warm

and the heavy glow of safety,

hale and hearty memories

of days before they were gone

in a flash; this is the Christmas in which to be thankful

that we have

all that we have

before the days turn to spring

and daffodils turn their heads

skywards to praise the Universe, so much bigger

on the outside.

Be thankful

From Me To You (This Christmas). full post

(181 words, estimated 43 secs reading time)

Status Quo, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. (2016).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The devout and the inspired will always go to the final preaching of the long lived and the elegantly able; like a fine wine served at room temperature in a Guernsey hotel, the taste is enough to feel inebriated just to be in the company of the exulted and prime music stalwarts. For the fans of Status Quo they were not about to allow their main hero of Francis Rossi or the memory of the band that started out all those decades ago to simply fade into the realm of acoustic sessions, this final night of the last ever electric tour in the U.K. was to be a celebration of all things Quo.

Status Quo, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. (2016). full post

(464 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

REO Speedwagon, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool.

 

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are many things that are remiss in this world, the fact that valiant AOR specialists REO Speedwagon have never made the journey to the heart of British music, the city that gave modern music to the masses, is surely one of them. Yet if the band were going to visit Liverpool for the first ever time then to be in the Echo Arena as the Christmas cheer bit down hard as the headliners played their last ever electric gig on British soil, then that was a present for many in the audience worth waiting for.

REO Speedwagon, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. full post

(383 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)