Sean Webster & The Dead Lines, See It Through. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

You can be sat in your armchair, your favourite drink sat by your side, the lights down to an acceptable, undemanding level and with not a care in the world. Then from out of nowhere, an album comes on in a genre heard a thousand time before and the ears prick up, they sense something that they know the brain is going to appreciate and they tell all the other organs to be aware, some serious is going to happen and the only possible solution is to See It Through.

Sean Webster & The Dead Lines, See It Through. Album Review. full post

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

The Garth Park Shelter

There is a shelter in the park that acted as a goal,

the football aimed squarely at whoever was unfortunate enough

to act as the keeper, imagining they were Peter Shilton, Ray Clemence

or in my case the great Gordon Banks or even

Bert Trautman.

Not that I often went in goal, I didn’t like diving

on to bare concrete and seeing my T-shirt

ripped to shreds in a strange, weird way of portraying machismo.

I made allowances when some of the girls that we knew

The Garth Park Shelter full post

(627 words, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

Still Open All Hours, Television Review. Series One.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: David Jason, Lynda Baron, James Baxter, Stephanie Cole, Maggie Ollerenshaw, Johnny Vegas, Brigit Forsyth, Tim Healy, Kulvinder Ghir, Sally Lindsay, Nina Wadia, Barry Elliott, Mark Williams, Paula Wilcox, Vicki Pepperdine, Emily Fleeshman.

Over 40 years have passed since the immortal Ronnie Barker stuttered onto the screens of the nation as the tight fisted, corner shop owning Albert Arkwright. It was the days when Ronnie Barker was the B.B.C.’s comedy giant, when he was the lord of all he surveyed, from the Two Ronnies, to the phenomenal Porridge and of course the might of the Roy Clarke written Open All Hours, all he touched turned to gold.

Still Open All Hours, Television Review. Series One. full post

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

Jago And Litefoot: The Hourglass Killers. Series Four Box-Set, Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Terry Malloy, Elizabeth Counsell, Christopher Beeny, Mike Grundy, Colin Baker.

All the secrets are soon to be out in the open, nearly all anyway, as Justin Richards brings the fourth season of the adventures of Jago and Litefoot to an edifying and interesting conclusion in The Hourglass Killers.

Jago And Litefoot: The Hourglass Killers. Series Four Box-Set, Audio Drama Review. full post

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

Blame The Wolves, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool.

Blame The Wolves, Zanzibar, Liverpool. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It must be the cry of half the population of the Black Country, one that they rejoice in and the other side decries with shouts of foul play before coming back with their own retort as their football scarves flutter wildly with expectation and grim determination. Yet somewhere in the unfairly called outback of Cheshire, Blame The Wolves has a different, more life affirming and tuneful approach mantra and as they appeared on stage at Zanzibar, the Saturday damp air mingling with revellers and drinkers realising just how long and arguably how bitter a personality January has, Blame The Wolves smashed down the door, made a movement towards the fireplace and made an appreciative audience howl with glee.

Blame The Wolves, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool. full post

(434 words, 1 image, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Mike Flaherty, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool.

Mike Flaherty at Zanzibar, Liverpool. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

The word interesting is one of the befuddled words that has changed its meaning over the years as each generation turns the English language inside out and makes it its own. Interesting and sick are two that seem to have almost swapped places as if in a Mark Twain historical novel and yet to those who see the words as they originally intended, interesting is a thing of beauty that is motivating and worthy of note and that certainly applies to the presence and appealing magnitude that resides in the soul of Mike Flaherty.

Mike Flaherty, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool. full post

(365 words, 1 image, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

The Lie Of Forever.

We might not ask you to go to war in a foreign field,

however in the hundred years since the flower of youth

died needlessly and with great pain, we have lied

to you over and over again, and I for one as an old man apologise

for what the world has done to you.

This flowering youth, every generation’s future bright young things,

constantly lied to, not just here but the world over,

until they become the embodiment of the lie to sell

on again and keep the splintered, creaking wheel

The Lie Of Forever. full post

(222 words, estimated 53 secs reading time)

Testament Of Youth, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alice Vikander, Kit Harington, Dominic West, Emily Watson, Colin Morgan, Hayley Atwell, Taron Egerton, Miranda Richardson, Joanna Scanlan, Niamh Cusack, Anna Chancellor, Jonathan Thurlow, Charlotte Hope, Henry Garrett, Daisy Waterstone, Harry Atwell, Nicholas Le Prevost, Nicholas Farrell.

The Testament of Youth is such that it carries more weight at times than the blinkered, narrow-minded view point of a generation that doesn’t see the damage it has wrought.

Testament Of Youth, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool. full post

(594 words, estimated 2:23 mins reading time)

Rebecca Downes, Back To The Start. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When you run out of avenues to go down, the only sensible solution is to go Back To The Start and enjoy the initial rush of determined expectancy and play music as if it’s for the first time.

In many a way, that can happen every day when you open your heart to straying beyond the self imposed lines that forever increase as time inexplicably and honestly marches on, none so much more than when a music lover comes across the delightful freshness that comes with a debut album.

Rebecca Downes, Back To The Start. Album Review. full post

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

This Last Tempest, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jessica Hoffman, Richard Dufty, Neil Johnson.

There will always hopefully be adaptations of William Shakespeare’s plays in one form or another, the 1960s television series The Forbidden Planet is one such form in which the son of Stratford play The Tempest has been looted and perhaps in some ways abused; it is the nature of things that great works, in some cases legendary, can either be taken down with a sense of cruel irony or, as in the case of This Last Tempest, just enhance what has gone before.

This Last Tempest, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(510 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)