Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Last Days of the Powell Estate. Big Finish. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Ecclestone, Billie Piper, Harki Bhambra, Camille Coduri, Dan Starkey, Mandi Symonds.

Ghosts and legends are not just born in palaces and grand houses, hauntings are not confined to estates where a single dwelling lords over all it surveys, they are formed in the most modern of aspects, on council estates where the only horrors initially imagined was how it was acceptable to house people in such cramped quarters in such a small area; offering a sense of community, but of little value to their everyday lives.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Last Days of the Powell Estate. Big Finish. Audio Drama Review. full post

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

Blue Lights: Series Three. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Siân Brooke, Katherine Devlin, Nathan Braniff, Dearbháile McKinney, Frank Blake, Martin McCann, Andi Osho, Joanne Crawford, Michael Smiley, Nicola Robinson, Neil Keery, Seamus O’ Hara, Cathy Tyson, Lorcan Cranitch, Charlie Maher, Matthew Forsythe, Abigail McGibbon, Michael Shae, Antoinette Morelli, Paula McFetridge, Brendan Quinn, Conor Mullen, Sophia Adli, Nick Dunning.

Blue Lights: Series Three. Television Drama Review. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. 2025 Box Set Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is an album that surely stands as a testament to the power of Progressive Rock, to the music of Genesis, and to the persuasive power of Peter Gabriel’s writing that seems to straddle an unearthly brilliance that not only recognised the zeitgeist that the genre and America were witnessing, but inhabiting it, prising open the cracks on a generation of New Yorkers that were finding the time they were born into devoid of the promises guaranteed by failures of politicians, of the scourge of unemployment, drugs, abuse, gender and social politics that were not designed to liberate but confine, to jail, to imprison the freedoms won after World War Two.

Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. 2025 Box Set Review. full post

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

The Bangles: Watching The Sky. Box Set Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There have been many all-female groups that have been respected and loved by the heavy pop and rock unions over the last few decades, few though have reached the heights of adoration that was focused upon the richness of songwriting and performing that could hold their own with their male counterparts that came about with groups such as The Liverbirds, The Runaways, The Go-Go’s, The Shangri-Las, Vixen and of course The Bangles.

The Bangles: Watching The Sky. Box Set Review. full post

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

Mark Gatiss: Doctor Who – Last Of The Gaderene. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Mark Gatiss is one of a rare breed of people who seems to instinctively understand every incarnation of the Doctor to the point where it would surely be impossible for him to create an adversary who was not worthy to tackle the ever ticking and calculating brain of the traveller in time and space, and in the Last Of The Gaderene, that deeply rooted appreciative voice transfers itself neatly to that of the Third personification of the strange wanderer in the fourth dimension as they take on, not only The Master, but an alien entity driven by misfortune and which has turned to envy and desire, as they focus their attention on destroying humanity so they can colonise the planet and restore life to their dying civilisation.

Mark Gatiss: Doctor Who – Last Of The Gaderene. Book Review. full post

(472 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

The Divine Comedy. Gig Review. (2025). Philharmonic Hall. Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Neil Hannon’s The Divine Comedy is probably the closest group ensemble to recreate the sensational beauty and drama of the old style Victorian Music Hall, and yet as the sheer poetry and observations are unveiled before the audience, the sense of modernity is overwhelming, two worlds colliding, one of examination of the sometimes absurd world we live in, and the other of outstanding theatre that captures human frailty at its most keenest, most endearing, its most vulnerable.

The Divine Comedy. Gig Review. (2025). Philharmonic Hall. Liverpool. full post

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

Martyn Joseph: Troubled Horses. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Concentration and a singular vision of focus is often the key to strength in delivering purpose, few in today’s bright lights and multitude of distractions can go a certain length of time without the desire to be pulled away, to glimpse what is outside of the bubble they wish to dedicate a sense of commitment to in which to achieve greatness or at least a weight of fulfilment with honour.

Martyn Joseph: Troubled Horses. Album Review. full post

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

Nine Bodies In A Mexican Morgue. Television Drama Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Eric McCormack, David Ajala, Lydia Wilson, Jan Le, Adam Long, Siobhan McSweeney, Peter Gadiot, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Carolina Guerra, Deborah Ayorinde, Hari Dhillon, Isaiah St. Jean, Ángel López-Silva, Sebastián Capitán Viveros, Harlys Becerra, Joana Borja, Christian Contreras, Sebastián Orozco, Daniel Topic, Misa D’Angelo, Oscar Foronda, Gloria Garcia.

Nine Bodies In A Mexican Morgue. Television Drama Series Review. full post

(461 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Resident Alien. Series Four. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alan Tudyk, Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds, Alice Wetterlund, Levi Fiehler, Judah Prehn, Elizabeth Bowen, Meredith Garretson, Kaylayla Raine, Gary Farmer, Ben Cotton, Alex Barima, Jenna Lamia, Diana Bang, Linda Hamilton, Alvin Sanders, Trevor Carroll, Terry O’Quinn.

In one of the most inventive and comical series of its kind, Resident Alien has been a refreshing combination of satire and down-to-earth comedy drama, one that plays upon the old idea of the miscommunication of the stranger in town, the traveller from abroad who is unaware of the social customs and niceties and who in time comes to be appreciated for what he can offer rather than what is expected of his kind.

Resident Alien. Series Four. Television Review. full post

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

The Newsreader. Series Three. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Anna Torv, Sam Reid, William McInnes, Marg Downey, Stephen Peacocke, Michelle Lim Davidson, Chum Ehelepola, Chai Hansen, Philippa Northeast, Daniel Henshall, Jackson Tozer, Rhys Mitchell, Andrew McFarlane, Gillian Cosgriff, Dan Spielman, Caroline Lee, Maria Angelico, Nick Simoson-Deeks, Maude Davey, Queenie van de Zandt, Tom Wilson, Maria Theodorakis, Grant Piro, Robin McLeavy, Meewon Yang, Joe Cho, Yuchen Wang.

The Newsreader. Series Three. Television Drama Review. full post

(479 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)