Who’s Afraid Of The Working Class?, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound & Vision Rating: * * * *

Cast: Connor Lee Dye, Matilda Weaver, Michael Bryan, Sophie Cottle, Chris Mohan, Fia Harrington, Emily Kingston, Joseph Wood, Maisie Young, James Botterill, Anna Brochmann, Hailey Mashburn.

Performed by third-year L.I.P.A. acting students, Luke Barnes’ epic new play, Who’s Afraid Of The Working Class?, looks at the brief history of one fictional community, whose people are trying to keep their heads above water whilst all around them their jobs are being removed alongside the industry and the unions. Unity one is completely opened up for this production and all actors remain on stage throughout, completing costume changes and constructing the set for scene changes themselves.

Who’s Afraid Of The Working Class?, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

London Has Fallen, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision *

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Charlotte Riley, Alon Aboutboul, Waleed Zuaiter, Michael Wildman, Radha Mitchell, Clarkson Guy Williams, Patrick Kennedy, Colin Salmon.

It’s rare for a film to be seen in the minds of its audience as nothing more than propaganda, of pandering and fulfilling its purpose of being a tool for recruitment in a war that doesn’t make sense and one in which will have those with more sheltered lives running for cover and being subject to a fear that is only as real as Hollywood and Government wish it to be.

London Has Fallen, Film Review. full post

(427 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

An Escape To Lilliput.

I wish I could escape to Lilliput

and see out my days knowing

the world of giants

is buried in dust, that

the path to my home,

glistening in small dew

on the verges of my lawn,

where the log fire burns

and snaps with occasional wet wood

that had escaped from undercover

and tea is permanently on the go,

where I can read a book

with my feet curling

their stately pedal like digits

and the soft breeze

that retires through a small hole

An Escape To Lilliput. full post

(167 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)

Exodus, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

For over 30 years American Thrash Metal band Exodus have primed their audiences with enough energy to fill more long life batteries than Duracell could ever muster, the violence they play up to only for show and for the crowd to draw off strength too and the influence of this has been keenly felt across many venues and cities throughout America, Europe and Britain.

Exodus, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(454 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Lost Society, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It seems that every day we inch closer to an abyss in which a society, a species that was born for greatness, is to be lost, vanquished off the face of the Earth by its own ineptitude and disorienting values, thankfully till that moment in which the next great extinction comes along there is always pleasure to be had in Finland’s Kings of the Thrash Metal genre Lost Society. Civilisation may be teetering, the position of leader of the Western world may about to put into the hands of a man who wants to build walls and a leader in Russia that fancies the idea of a Nuclear Middle East party but Lost Society know how to fill a room with music driven scorch marks and ear bashing, heart thumping Metal groove.

Lost Society, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(460 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Deified, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The deep rumblings of discontent, the explosion of a megaton bomb and the urgency of a siren warning of an impending attack, all fade into the ether when the growl of Thrash and Heavy Metal gets going, when it breaks loose of society’s moorings and allows itself the free range in which to catapult its quarrel and blistering beautiful argument into the ears of those receptive to a different kind of outbreak.

Deified, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

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

A Raisin In The Sun, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: * * *

Cast: Alisha Bailey, Mike Burnside, Solomon Gordon, Angela Wynter, Aron Julius, Everal A Walsh, Susan Wokoma, Ashley Zhangazha.

Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright and activist wrote A Raisin in the Sun in 1959 and was the first black woman to write a play that was performed on Broadway. The play highlights the struggles of black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago and follows the story of the Youngers; a lower middle class family who struggle to gain middle class acceptance.

A Raisin In The Sun, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(332 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

The Forest, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Cast: Natalie Dormer, Eion Macken, Stephanie Vogt, Taylor Kinney, Ibuki Kaneda, Akiko Iwase, Noriko Sakura, Yûho Yamashita, Terry Diab, Yukiyoshi Ozawa.

There are places steeped in their own mythology and natural setting that it is a surprise to find that it has had relatively few films or television programmes devoted to its uniqueness, its solitude or its folklore and traditions. Perhaps in the case of Japan’s Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji that might be a good thing for the restless spirits that abide in that lonely place are not ones that should be talked about in the craven image of film making.

The Forest, Film Review. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

It Never (Really) Mattered.

It never mattered to me until now,

because I knew he was wrong,

I half let it slide, I let it stew and fester,

I allowed it to simmer in the background,

but it has to be said

I paid it no attention, just like I paid no thought

to the Religious Education lesson I once attended

and to whom this day my knowledge

of the Bible still outranks

some of the supposed learned people

who have studied it, because my thoughts

are not blinded by tunnel vision, love who you love,

It Never (Really) Mattered. full post

(238 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

Bardolph’s Box, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Anna Buckland, Stuart Crowther, Harvey Robinson.

To bring a new generation of theatre lovers into the realms of existence, the effort must be made to demonstrate to them just what a wonderful world it is; if Government in all its selfish motives keeps sending down messages that science and the pursuit of feeding the gluttonous economy must be paramount, then every form of the arts must counteract this by showing the young that the soul is just as important to nurture as the wallet.

Bardolph’s Box, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(394 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)