It is easy to say goodbye, you just have to pack whatever it is that you cannot live without and then without looking back, walk out of the door, never slamming it, never displaying anger or rage, and stroll off in to the distance…it is easy to say goodbye in such a way, after all eventually you will be found again and perhaps all the hurt that you felt will have disappeared into the ether, lost in the maelstrom of emotional distress and misplaced resentment.
Viola Beach, Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The last 12 months have been rotten for the arts, too many greats have passed on and left those of us behind with only memories and faded aspirations; this is no so more true as in the bitterest of moments of when a young and decent band is cruelly taken from their place in the section of future heroes and all because of an accident.
The Secret Agent, Television Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Toby Jones, Charlie Hamblett, Vicky McClure, Marie Critchley, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Raphael Acloque, Stephen Graham, Ian Hart, Tom Goodman-Hill, David Dawson, Ash Hunter, George Costigan, Pennie Downie, Selina Boyack, Philip Rosch, Christopher Fairbank, Chris Ryman.
It can only be a good thing that television is prepared at times to look back through the innumerable amount of books and novels from before the second world war, the wealth of words wrapped up in long forgotten dust sheets and only admired by students of English literature. At times, it is good that television does this, for it reminds the multitude that there is such a thing as a story without sensationalism and the need for lust to be shown at every possible moment.
Bad Boy Expression.
The height of bad boy expression,
fifteen years old and hanging
on the corner, holding your mate’s fag
in one unseen shaking hand
whilst casually sipping
on a can of cheap, devilishly sick
beer, brought from the off licence
as he looked over your shoulder
at every car that went past in case
it was an off duty policeman
ready to nail his arse to the ground
for supplying you with the means of courage
to talk to the girl who was flavour
of the month in your diary,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer: The Anthology. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10
They were the Kings of all they surveyed, the supergroup’s supergroup, along with King Crimson, they could be arguably be seen as the fathers of Progressive Rock and their back catalogue is one that is steeped in the absolute, the pinnacle to which many tried so very hard to match but only a few, Pink Floyd between 73-79, Genesis between Foxtrot and Wind and Wuthering and Supertramp with Crime of the Century and Breakfast and America could equal during the 70s heyday of Progressive Rock.
The Musketeers, The Prize. Television Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Gage, Tamla Jari, Matthew McNulty, Hugo Speer, Robby Fisher, Andre Flynn, Robert Glenister, Crispin Letts, Thalissa Teixeira, Matt Stokoe, Victoria Alcock, Melanie Kilburn.
All good stories end far too soon and as one of the biggest hits on the B.B.C., The Musketeers, will attest as it draws to its finale, such stories are only possible to love because they have been given absolute care and love by those involved and the audience at home; that rare mix to which so many lengthy serials strive for but so few actually grasp the true meaning of The Prize at hand.
Finding Dory, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Ellen DeGeneres, Ed O’Neil, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Sloane Murray, Idris West, Rob Peterson, Dominic West, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver, Alexander Gould, Torbin Xan Bullock, Katherine Ringgold, Lucia Geddes, William Dafoe, Allison Janney.
Some sequels can justifiably be seen as a marketing tool, a chance to take the public down the same road with just enough plot twists to make it feel new and exciting, and too which the money becomes sly as the franchise becomes all consuming. It is perhaps cynical to think of it that way but it is nonetheless an important factor to remember.
Your Walk Along The Cliffs At Mullion.
Beautiful photographs captured
with digital stillness in full colour
and without enhancement
of a county
I haven’t been able to see
with my own eyes since before
we worried about the Y2K bug
and the image of the end of days,
they all float before me,
my eyes growing damp,
of a county tattooed
on my brown like skin
and the cross of St. Piran
held high upon every rugged coast line,
another country, a different place
and one that I wish I could see
Ball Of Fire, Theatre Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Michael Hawkins, Ronny Goodlass, Michael Cullen, John Purcell, Sally Tryer, Adam Byrne, Katie King, James Ledsham, Danny Noble, Lisa Symonds.
At best Alan Ball was a world beater, a man to whom Pele described at the finest player in an England shirt, arguably the best player on the pitch on the day the country won the World Cup in July 1966, tenacious, a spirited player to whom Alf Ramsey made a hero of and to whom Don Revie discarded cruelly and without pomp and ceremony, at worst…well there was no worst, just dogged by ill fortune and personal disasters that would go hand in hand with the Lancashire’s lad’s demeanour and psyche for his entire life.
John O’ Connell, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is always the novel approach, the unexpected gig to hit the Liverpool streets or the venue in which the audience turn up for a different kind of theatrical experience, the play may well be the thing but it is music after all in which captures the conscious of the audience and there are very few people like one of the Merseyside area’s favourite sons, John O’ Connell, in which to liberate the expanse of music on stage and to give a genuine feeling of love to the classical side of guitar performance.