Captain Phillips, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M.Ali, Michael Chernus, David Warshofsky, Corey Johnson, Chris Mulkey, Yul Vazquez, Max Martini, Omar Berdouni, Mohamed Ali, Issak Farah Samatar, Catherine Keener.

It seems that no matter what, Tom Hanks is able to draw the viewer in completely into his world, whether in the imagination of a child but in the body of a grown man, a corporate lawyer who contracts HIV in a time of misunderstanding and fear or as Captain Phillips, a veteran freight captain, he has it all.

Captain Phillips, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(604 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Jago & Litefoot: The Man At The End Of The Garden. Series Three. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Joanna Bacon, Eden Monteath, Joanna Monro, Duncan Wisbey.

There are some tales, supposedly written for the benefit of children that are really for the attention of adult world. Red Riding Hood, a tale of heroism perhaps in the hands of a small child or really the precautionary story and veiled warning to a woman not to let any old wolf take her virtue. Whatever the fairy-tale, whatever its meaning, the chance for children to be told instructive tales by adults somehow slows down the learning of the moral in the story and makes adults forget the unseen world in which children’s fears are played out.

Jago & Litefoot: The Man At The End Of The Garden. Series Three. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(421 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Sonder Glory.

I thought I’d get a job in Switzerland
waiting tables, taking orders and
existing in a hole the Swiss permit,
but Rousseau must not have had it writ.
I’d sit and watch the water of the earth
spring forth and counter this employment dearth.
Yet water on its own cannot contain
the evolution of this reductive train
of thought: avoiding England’s harm
by overreaching Empire’s furthest arm.

Sonder Glory. full post

(587 words, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

Reflections on Seamus (31st August 2013)

It’s taken 24 hours to sink in,
as would a swimmer, with his goggles perched
on plugged nose, expect the dive. Goosebumped skin –
the tell-tale silhouette of the millstone.
The bard is lost to us. Only thinking
of him on a train, or in a field.
There’s no buoyancy in this afterthought:
Sean can get the drinks in (he’s been waiting)
and there’s so many fish still to be caught.
Somewhere far off, a stranger departed
before the last train home. I’ll spend some time
browsing on the District and Circle line.
I’ll find my place (it’s marked) where sunners lay
and sleep in moss while Seamus speeds away.

Reflections on Seamus (31st August 2013) full post

(115 words, estimated 28 secs reading time)

PIL, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Watching John Lydon on stage surely has to go down as one of the most singular pleasures you are ever likely to have in life.  For those who grew up with him as part of their musical heritage or simply because he made a certain television programme watchable for the time he was on there, John Lydon is an iconic man to behold on stage and in life. For those that made their way to the O2 Academy in Liverpool to witness PIL give a sensational account of themselves, that living legend grinned down at the audience and gave them a night to relish.

PIL, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(466 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

The Selector, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To tour with PIL, you have to be good. No two ways about it, you have to be better than good you have to be of the calibre that the audience will take to immediately and have the presence of a Greek titan holding aloft the captured remains of an enemy at war. In Pauline Black and The Selector, both requirements were met with astonishing ease and for the crowd at the 02 Academy, to have this type of pedigree as support to PIL, to John Lydon and the fabulous set of musicians would have been like having dinner at Claridges and being allowed to have the desert, after dinner mints and coffee first.

The Selector, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

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

On The One Hand, Theatre Review. Playhouse Studio. Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Illona Linthwaite, Sarah Berger, Tracey-Anne Liles, Kylie Walsh, Hannah Lambsdown.

All the world really is a stage and for The Paper Birds at the Playhouse Studio, the allusion to Jaques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It as he ruminates melancholically over the seven ages of man is more than a nod, it is a great big friendly handshake that captures the very essence of six of the ages of womanhood in their production of On the One Hand.

On The One Hand, Theatre Review. Playhouse Studio. Liverpool. full post

(459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Trivium, Vengeance Falls. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

If one band was going to give Black Sabbath a run for their well established and seemingly unassailable position as producing the best Heavy Metal album from an American or British band then really Trivium and their brutally astonishing, captivating and hard edged album Vengeance Falls could well be the only serious contender.

Trivium, Vengeance Falls. Album Review. full post

(372 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Gary Numan, Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind). Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are some things in life that will always seem permanent, the first drops of rain on a British lawn leading to water companies announcing that there will be a hosepipe ban, qualification by any of the home nations to the finals of the World Cup or getting the newspapers going over the top in their assertion that the trophy will be coming home. However, perhaps most welcome of all, the first track of a new Gary Numan album will just be the prelude to a recording so hot that if set out in space would cause the sun to develop blisters.

Gary Numan, Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind). Album Review. full post

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

Stewart Lee, Comedy Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Stewart Lee’s latest show boasts value for money as he delivered two hours and twenty minutes of largely new material, where he takes seemingly familiar subject matter to abstract and hilarious new territory.

Stewart Lee, Comedy Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)