Crime And Punishment, Theatre Review. The Casa, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Nathan Benjamin, Bow Towers, Yahya Baggash, P.J. Murray, Michael Cavanagh, Helen Lanceley, Peter Durr, Pam Campbell, Laura Connolly.

There is a stark and simple truth, an element of wholesomeness and direct appeal that Burjesta Theatre bring to the stage; the stripped back but achingly beautiful way of producing their adaptive productions, be it dealing with great weighty historical novels such as War and Peace or the huge wonderful explorations of Greek tragedy theatre, all is given the reverence of the magisterial, the subtle timings of players performing for the enjoyment of the words and the greatness of the play.

Crime And Punishment, Theatre Review. The Casa, Liverpool. full post

(441 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

It Will Always Keep Coming.

Get to the first hour of December,

that new born minute

and somewhere in the world

you will stop breathing,

your chest will stop

and people will grieve;

the year has been the perfect assassin

with stealthy fleet foot,

yet there is still more time to play,

celebrity is always in vogue.

 

The thirty one days, counting

down because that is what we do,

we cross off the days in our heads

and with marker pen

on the free

and easy calendars that we received

It Will Always Keep Coming. full post

(174 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

Roxanne de Bastion, Run. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is a reason we fall in love with someone and it normally has a lot to do with their actions, their demeanour, their faith and hopefully most importantly the way they capture and echo your thoughts in art and their voice resonates how you feel, about yourself, the world and every heartbeat in between.

Roxanne de Bastion, a much loved figure on the Liverpool acoustic scene, understands this, she simply plays the guitar and allows a series of truths to unfold in the audience’s presence, she plays with the notes, she offers the lyrics but it is the listener, the crowd member that finds out how to Run with their imagination unhindered.

Roxanne de Bastion, Run. Single Review. full post

(339 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

Madness, Can’t Touch Us Now. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are not many bands that have the special relationship with their fans that Madness have enjoyed and continue to revel in. Even after almost 40 years, the rapport between the members of the group, their cool glance at life during the endearing decades in which they have placed their bowler hats and well manicured smiles and sometimes sarcastic roll of the eyes, and the audience, has never once wavered, so much so that as the decades have fallen away, as age has withered us, it can be suggested that to Madness, Can’t Touch Us Now, is the cherry on life’s nutty cake.

Madness, Can’t Touch Us Now. Album Review. full post

(422 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Changes- For David, Donald, Leonard And Hilary.

Changes,

the world has been

through the wringer, the pulping

machine this last year, 2016

the year of the dreaded day

and the mincing machine

where reality has been reality,

in that everybody

eventually dies

or gets to play politics; changes

everyone, the shroud envelopes all

and in the grey black mist,

a crooked bony finger cocks slows

and asks you to join the dance.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016

Permanent link to this post (72 words, estimated 17 secs reading time)

The Woman In Black, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Acton, Matthew Spencer.

A good ghost story never flinches in the face of modern day scepticism, if anything it can grow with stature, it can take on almost a life of its own, of becoming a haunting reminder of the world in between realities that shape and bend our perceptions of what is clear and unsullied and what is blurred, distorted and afraid to step out of the shadows. A good ghost story is one which you can feel the person next to you wanting to jump out of their skin, their creeping flesh tingle with nervousness and anticipation; there are many that have this effect but few capture the pure sense of emotion that is inherent as The Woman In Black.

The Woman In Black, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

The Accountant, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jean Smart, John Lithgow, Andy Umberger, Jason Davis, Robert C. Treveiler, Mary Kraft, Ron Prather, Susan Williams, Fernado Chien, Alex Collins.

Anybody can make a film it seems where the protagonist has a deep dark past, something in their history that has driven them to the point in which the audience joins them in the carnage, mayhem and resolution to come; anybody and everybody has made a film in which the leading role or the anti-hero has a quirk, a certain eccentricity that makes them stand out but rarely do they do it such a way that the characteristics of autism are made to be so dynamic and fully mapped out, explored in a way that the hero is anything but fulfilled and given absolute purpose.

The Accountant, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool. full post

(392 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Paranoid, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Robert Glenister, Indira Varma, Dino Fetscher, Neil Stuke, Christiane Paul, Lesley Sharp, Dominik Tiefenthaler, Michael Maloney, Anjli Mohindra, Kevin Doyle, Jonathan Ojinnaka, William Flanagan, John Duttine, William Ash, Daniel Drewes, Polly Walker, Richard Wheeldon, Jason Done, Danny Hutson.

When taking on a big television production, one with a tale that should be enormous and potentially gripping beyond anything else on television in a single year, it often helps the series realise its own levels of genius by not overpowering it with too many subplots and characters to whom the story would not miss one single iota. Some of the greatest mini-series ever have relied solely on the narrow focus, on the detail and not the illusion and it is unfortunately a piece of television advice forgotten largely in the creation of Paranoid.

Paranoid, Television Review. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

She Is On Fire.

I cannot see America

anymore, she has slipped away,

ghost like but on fire, flames

orange, red and cobalt blue,

the stripes scorched,

the stars starting to singe

and the great experiment dies

a little more each day,

in anger, frustration and with the word of God

upon their cracked and dishevelled lips;

ghost and fire,

I mourn you now

every which way possible.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016

Permanent link to this post (71 words, estimated 17 secs reading time)

November 2016, Sleep Now.

You have become too big,

now I fear

that you will fail, spectacularly,

with liberty in hiding

and the prospect of internal war

grinding,

dividing,

chomping and salivating over your soul;

you are flat-lining in the heartlands

and the political elite never understood why,

you rebelled for a while

before falling into a coma

one autumn day.

Break apart, you

cannot live together in peace

and the bullet will surely

now seek revenge

upon revenge

upon revenge;

till in the midst of four Presidents

November 2016, Sleep Now. full post

(108 words, estimated 26 secs reading time)