Celebrated Jazz pianist Jason Rebello is one of those rare individuals in music to have worked with some of the out and out greats of his chosen genre but also with the likes of Sting and Peter Gabriel. A musician of great stature he first came to prominence at a young age and by the time 1990 came around he had recorded his first album, A Clearer View which was produced by Weather Report’s Wayne Shorter.
Jason Rebello, Anything But Look. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Jazz never really went away; it perhaps got selective about who would enjoy it, a little choosy on who would really sit down and listen to the idea and perhaps its brief dalliance with Prog overtones during the whole Brand X era was too much for many to get into but it certainly never went away.
Inspector George Gently, Gently Between the Lines. Television Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Robert Pugh, Ruth Gemmell, Steve Evets, Charlie Richmond, Matt Stokoe, Alan Renwick, Christopher Connel, Finn Burridge, Liam Caffry, Paul Dingwall, Michael Hodgson, Samantha Phyllis Morris, Fiona Boylan, Caroline O’Neil, Don Gallagher, Simon Hubbard, Cheryl Dixon.
It may be hard to define what makes the Inspector George Gently series such compelling television. After all, there is an abundance of police dramas constantly on the go, like a merry go round that just keeps getting fuller and faster as more channels are added and then you go and include the Nordic Noir series, the United States imports which these days are too clean, too clinical and far too science based as if they are an advertisement for a thousand microscopes rather than the actual detective, the dogged gumshoe approach.
The Dallas Buyers Club, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, Steve Zahn, Dallas Roberts, Michael O’Neil, Denis O’Hare, Griffin Dune, John Tabler, Jane McNeill, James DuMont, Bradford Cox, Kevin Rankin, Lawrence Turner, Matthew Thompson, Adam Dunn, Ian Cassleberry.
A lot has been made of the fact that actor Matthew McConaughey lost an incredible amount of weight to portray foul mouthed, bull riding cowboy, AIDS sufferer Ron Woodruff in the film The Dallas Buyers Club that it almost seems to have detracted from the real point of an exceptionally made film. The redemption of a man from completely unlikeable, homophobic and intolerant person at the start to somebody you would be able to sit down and have a conversation with without wanting to take to task.
How To Be Immortal, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: John McKeever, Anna-Helena McLean, Clare Perkins.
In the back of our minds, we all hope, perhaps secretly, that we will be remembered for the good we have bought into the world. Even if by the smallest gesture, the one thing that makes our existence meaningful will somehow transform the way the world is looked at. It need not even be a grand gesture, the erection of a large building and dedicated to all for example but in just the smallest way, the tiniest particle of our humanity passed on might give hope to millions.
MaYan, Antagonise. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
In a world that seems to become more corrupt, more fraudulent in the way in the way that as people, as citizens of a global community, we are treated, spied upon, taken to task for having the temerity in poking our heads above the ramparts and questioning the right to anybody knowing everything about lives, it seems the more somebody dares pose their doubt, the more tighter the grip becomes. Told who we must hate, despise, loathe, keep an eye on for, be like the two worst and vile extremes of human surveillance that the 20th century forced upon a Europe that slept walked almost into death, too few people speak up to point out what is wrong with the world.
Suzanne Vega, Tales From the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The end of one decade and the start of another in your life always brings about the chance to reflective with what you have achieved and where you see your life going. It is only right that as you grow, your 20s and your 50s are wildly different and perhaps more contemplative, more attuned to a world that at points feels as though is crumbling down right around you and the urge to set it right for the those following on behind.
Bella – Queen of the Blackfriars Ring, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Denise Kennedy, Andrew Frizell.
Whitechapel has produced more than a few characters of ill repute and more than a few of notable glory over the last couple of centuries but arguably none were like Bella Burge. A woman who typified the spirit of the East-End, who on her 11th birthday walked through the same misbegotten streets as Jack the Ripper, who was taken in and apprenticed by one of Music Halls leading lights, trod the boards herself, married a championship winning boxer only to see him arrested as part of a bank fraud/betting scam three weeks later in Liverpool and who in the end became the first woman Boxing promoter in the world. Bella Burge is ripe to spoken of just as highly as anybody from the East-End.
Inside No 9: Sardines. Television Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Timothy West, Anne Reid, Ophelia Lovibond, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Katherine Parkinson, Tom Key, Luke Pasqualino, Anna Chancellor, Marc Wooton, Ben Willbond.
There is something quite wonderfully chilling in having Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton back on television together. Even without their League of Gentlemen co-star Mark Gatiss around, the chemistry, the pleasing abundance of visual darkness and comedy that filters through to make great and worthy programmes is enough to make you weep tears of joy as you become yet again embroiled into their latest world.
Midsomer Murders: The Flying Club. Television Review. I.T.V.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Tamzin Malleson, Robert Bathurst, Phil Cornwell, Bernard Cribbins, Pete Meads, Jacqueline King, John Duggan, Scarlett Alice Johnson, Lee Nicholas Harris, John W.G. Harley, Susan Fordham, Lucy Phelps, Chris Nighingale, Martyn Mayger, Barrie Martin, June Whitefield, Geoffrey Whitehead, Sara Stewart, Lex Shrapnel, Laila Rouass, Oliver Rix, Francesca Zoulewelle.
For many the past is never too far from their minds. It is what has shaped them into who they are. The past should never be truly be forgotten either as it by that assumption that the mistakes, the often to terrible to contemplate mistakes, come back to haunt you.