Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Edwina Lea, Emma Hirons, James Michael Doolan, Nathan Smith.
The Pied Piper is one of those rare stories that can both enthral and beguile and disgust and terrify at the same time, it is no wonder it is such a firm favourite of lovers of fairy tales and that it is ripe for re-telling in as many different ways as you can imagine on the stage.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Gemma Broderick, Barrie Ryan English, Catherine Rice, Leroy Liburd.
If you go down to the woods today…you might meet a few characters from a classic fairy tale that don’t exactly fit the stereotype and certainly never behaved in such a way before. From a wolf with aspiration issues to a young girl in a red hood that’s far too small and who has changed from the sweet person of memory in a teenager whose concerns are now more to do with the embarrassment that her Karaoke loving mum causes, this re-telling of the story of Little Red Riding Hood at The Actors Studio is guaranteed to be enjoyed by young and old alike.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
All the world’s a stage and the sense of theatre can be found in almost every human interaction. For alternative Folk quartet, Clutching At Straws, their debut release of Come What May is a set of songs that glide almost effortlessly between the hard hitting conscious thought, of a different way of living and the hint of illusion in what apparently is important in modern day society. The sound of four men whose undisputed talent keeps them pace ahead of the rat race they are urging others to avoid.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Boston never really typified the typical rock and that really is a good thing. The bands that were around them around the same time changed their ways and became less in your face and took on the approach that not every rock track needs to dogmatic, the same tired rhetoric filled with the only ambition being to be louder and brash than everybody else. Boston, or rather Tom Scholz bought a new and exciting feel, one more filled with the love of music and lyrics that play with love as an ideal.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Carole Ann Ford, Terry Molloy.
There is nothing like returning to the start of the story to realise just how much has been left unsaid and just how much more is there even before the commencement of the adventure actually began.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Aretha Ayeh, Marianne Benedict, Carla Freeman, Matthew Ganley, Lindsay Goodhead, Sam Haywood, Adam Keast, Sarah Moss, Griffin Stevens, Francis Tucker.
For Sarah A. Nixon and Mark Chatterton, the writers of the Playhouse Theatre Rock ‘N’ Roll Panto, the subject of Aladdin is one that they have revisited with pride a couple of times but never like this, not with the scale, the almost sense of the wonderful and wonderment all wrapped up in a festive feast that was exactly the production and performance that audiences could have wished for.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Sometimes as an audience member, it only takes the intro music, the sound of footsteps echoing across the floorboards and the flicker and change of light to realise that not only are you in for a gig of high quality but also that you are in the presence of greatness.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
In a world that becomes ever more complex and awash with more art being produced than ever before and from all parts of the globe, it is natural to miss something or someone in which when you do finally catch up with them can either be embarrassment or a blessing. In the case of The Dead Daisies, the performance they gave at the 02 Academy in Liverpool was greeted with an air of enthusiasm that befitted the occasion of main support to Black Star Riders and was firmly in the court of a band that should be appreciated.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
It may always come as a slight surprise that some people are quite willing to part with hard earned cash for a gig and then proceed to miss at least half of it. Of course there is work; that cannot be helped, it is part and parcel of being in the kind of society that we are. Then there may be child care issues to consider. However that surely still leaves a fair percentage, a sizeable chunk of a gig going audience who only ever turn up for the main act and perhaps don’t even want to take the chance on something new. For those that made their way to the o2 Academy in Liverpool in good time to see Western Sands and The Dead Daisies, there was a feeling of overwhelming nodding approval in what they saw.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, Gillian Sakar, Charlene McKenna, Paul Kaye, MyAnna Buring, Gina Bellman, Justin Avoth, Chris Patrick Simpson, David Wilmot, David Dawson, Damien Molony, Kirsty Oswald, Callum Turner, Liam Burke, Gwynne McElveen.
The writers of Ripper Street have never been afraid to head down the path afforded the rich history of Whitechapel for its inspiration. Whether it is the world of male prostitution, the salaciousness of Molly Houses, the rights of women, the Irish question or the straight poison that stalked the streets of the East End in 1888, there is not a moment in that dark history of Whitechapel that isn’t worth exploring.