Dean Friedman, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. (2015)

Dean Friedman at the Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. October 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The city that doesn’t know how to stop singing is always enhanced by a visitor of repute from beyond its natural domain. Many of the greats from across the seas, from beyond the realms in which the Atlantic Ocean divides and sometimes conquers as it crashes into the cliffs and harbours and steals moment after moment of time and crumbling portions of land, have made their way to Liverpool to remind the city that America and the musical empire of Britain are forever linked and entwined.

Dean Friedman, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. (2015) full post

(503 words, 1 image, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Before The Flood. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Colin McFarlane, Sophie Stone, Zaqi Ismail, Morven Christie, Arsher Ali, Steve Robertson, Paul Kaye, Neil Fingleton, Peter Serafinowicz, Corey Taylor.

There are moments in the world of science fiction in which as a viewer, the onlooker into the world of the fantastic and seemingly off kilter from our own perceptions of reality. Where you just know in a darkened corridor or locked basement where writers are kept from the prying eyes of the public and their demands, that the occasional fist bump, high five or even hugging with certain amounts of glee are to take place when they explain themselves out of a possible predicament in a story line. If that is the case then all three signs of exuberant showmanship should have been heard somewhere around the bay of Cardiff as the fourth episode of the 2015 series of Doctor Who played out.

Doctor Who: Before The Flood. Television Review. full post

(518 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Nick Frost Melts Liverpool’s Hearts At Waterstones.

Nick Frost at Waterstones in Liverpool. October 2015. Photgraph by Ian D. Hall.

Nick Frost’s memoirs are as colourful as the man is exuberant and lively. A man to whom the world of acting has taken a dramatic shine to since he first appeared on television and to whom so much has happened on screen as it has away from it.

Nick Frost Melts Liverpool’s Hearts At Waterstones. full post

(499 words, 1 image, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

All Stories Burn To Ash.

When I hear that nobody else will be by your side

on the day that you will feel at your most lonesome,

I try to hide my disappointment

but I know as I make my way

across town to the shaded autumn glade,

one shrouded in finery and the memories

of my own Grandfather’s ashes

I will do my best to remember the good

times we shared.

I’ve only ever been there once

I could not go on the day when they took

My hero away, I could not face the prospect

All Stories Burn To Ash. full post

(200 words, estimated 48 secs reading time)

Ashley Reaks And Joe Hakim, Cultural Thrift. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Culture is under threat. Art is being intimidated by the powers that be that suggest in not so secretive tones that the human experience of being alive and feeling all that comes with it, every aspect of poetry, the paintbrush upon silken canvas and the melody that runs through the head, is nothing, not worth a damn compared to the economic slug like festering opportunity of toiling the day away to earn a different dream, one of consumerism madness.

Ashley Reaks And Joe Hakim, Cultural Thrift. Album Review. full post

(428 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Killing Joke, Pylon. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

There should always be a connection when listening to music, a growing bond and linking association that supports the structure between the soul and the brain; a link that is closely guarded by the music being entertained by both human facets. Sometimes though the link can go wrong, whether the fault of the band for being too clever for their own good and devising an album that doesn’t come across as being nourishment, instead being seen as a mark of audience condoning, or on the part of the listener who half way through the aural experience finds themselves daydreaming of their first musical love, the link for whatever it is worth dies.

Killing Joke, Pylon. Album Review. full post

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

Liverpool Sound And Vision: The Saturday Supplement, An Interview With Denis Parkinson.

Denis Parkinson’s name has been quite rightly become part of the ever-growing mass of talented musicians plying their guitar strung wares round the city of Liverpool. Whether to be found in the demanding social scene of the open-mic nights or playing with the cerebral boon associated with the Liverpool Acoustic brethren, Denis Parkinson has the eye and ear for an observing lyric and a strength of conviction to follow through the process, even after many years away from the natural home for his talent.

Liverpool Sound And Vision: The Saturday Supplement, An Interview With Denis Parkinson. full post

(1995 words, estimated 7:59 mins reading time)

The Sanctuary Within The Leaves.

Wandering through the books piled high,

the lustful eye of sentence coming over me and the rigid

spines of non conformity, shrouded in sizes ranging from the obese

and the thin streaks of nothing,

to the over familiar that I catch glancing my way,

eye-less

but still able to wink at me in complete recognition of a fond

couple of days spent in bed together, peace in our time,

as well as in my head,

to the unobtainable, the ones that prize themselves too lofty

to be anything but out of reach, their beloved verdict

The Sanctuary Within The Leaves. full post

(285 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

Fables: Super Team. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Every graphic novel has the desire it seems at least once in its publication to hark back to the golden era of comic books and assemble a team of disparate heroes, a squad of misfits and rebel loners who together are capable of beating the odds and taking down a force that threatens to engulf and enflame all that they hold dear. It is the staple of such ideological heroism that draws many to graphic novels in the first place and which is never truly captured in between the pages of any novel.

Fables: Super Team. Book Review. full post

(488 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

The Glass Menagerie, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Eric Kofi Abrefa, Erin Doherty, Tom Mothersdale, Greta Scacchi.

If you can place human experience into the realms of the zoo, the caged animal yearning for freedom, an escape from the rigid and the pawed upon control that comes with the overpowering smell that lingers with the cruelly defeated and gazed upon, then that tightness, that crushed inevitability of life’s cruel illusion is only tempered by the huge cosmic joke played upon us all and perhaps arguably no play best typifies this than Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie.

The Glass Menagerie, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)