Tag Archives: Liverpool

Little Sparrow, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool.

Little Sparrow at Leaf in Liverpool. September 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Time has been described as many things, a snarling beast which needs to be tamed, perhaps even hunted down and taught a lesson or two, the great leveller in which all humanity is judged by its actions or even perhaps a companion, a trusted ally in which the truth of your life is carried. Time though can also be brutally obstinate, it can make visits to a venue in your city from a very talented singer/songwriter seem as though Ice Ages come and go with quicker frequency.

Little Sparrow, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool. full post

(527 words, 1 image, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Laura James, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The candles that stand on the tables inside Leaf flicker with eager anticipation. The small draught that comes and goes as the lift that sits at the back of the hall above the clanking tea pots, the smell of food being cooked and conversations that had at the heart of them been spirited questions of the Scottish Referendum winds itself open to let out yet another selection of fans in time to see Laura James deliver a set that sat happily and comfortably with an enraptured audience.

Laura James, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool. full post

(400 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Anna Corcoran. Gig Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Anna Corcoran at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool. September 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

This is the show, arguably the only performance in town that would grab the attention of so many on a night when the news, both local and international, in which could prize the heart away from what used to be called despairingly interesting times. For Anna Corcoran, the sweet deftness of a long lingering caress on a keyboard that responds with a nod of approval and its own commendation, is an hour of time that goes by so fast and yet you feel its effect long after you have got home and played the gig over in your mind as dreams embrace your quivering soul.

Anna Corcoran. Gig Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(475 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Thom Morecroft, Gig Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Thom Morecroft at the Unity Theatre, September 2014. Photograph By Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Sometimes, occasionally, as rare as a night in which the stars seem to come out and take a bow for the beauty they provide and in which the moon trespasses on the Sun’s heavenly position in the sky, something just catches the attention of a collection of musicians and they give a performance so exciting, so unreal that even the moon knows it’s time to go hiding in the moment of eclipse.

Thom Morecroft, Gig Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(471 words, 1 image, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Last Horizon, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The distance between our lives has got to the point where to feel disconnected from society is perhaps a prospect that many arguably feel. Nearly seven billion people on a planet and yet life can feel as lonely in a crowded, bustling and sophisticated city as it can standing at the very top of the world in which the only company is a polar bear with an appetite so large that it mentally makes a menu of your body parts. What keeps us together in one form or another is music, it may divide opinion, one genre’s greatness in one set of senses is another’s form of torture, but it certainly unites those who see the devastating beauty in it.

Last Horizon, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(497 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Fear The Resistance, Gig Review. o2 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Fear is the mother of Hope, without one you cannot have the other, without them both the world makes as much sense as dumping a lorry load of nettle leafs into molten gold and selling the remains to the people of Sark in exchange for the island’s entire bicycle collection. Some things just don’t make sense.

Fear The Resistance, Gig Review. o2 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(565 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

Noises Off, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jennifer Bea, Tupele Dorgu, Jessica Dyas, Stephen Fletcher, Kim Hartman, Phil Hearne, Chris Jordan, Jonathan Markwood, Danny O Brien.

The show must go on…even if there are sardines cluttering up the stage, the leading ladies hate each other, one of the leading men wants to kill the other with a fire axe and the Director is left a gibbering wreck, even with his enormous ego, in the wake of being on stage amongst the carnage and destruction that an acting troupe can bring to a theatre. Think you know theatre, then the magical mayhem of arguably the finest British comedy of the 20^th Century, Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, is one to behold.

Noises Off, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Pride, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Andrew Scott, Dominic West, George Mackay, Paddy Considine, Joseph Gilgun, Faye Marsey, Freddie Fox, Ben Schnetzer, Jessie Cave, Liz White, Sophie Evans, Monica Dolan, Jessica Gunning, Chis Overton. Russell Tovey.

America can provide you with the blockbuster, Europe the art, India the beauty but when it comes to truth, justice, the gritty political outpouring, nobody does it better than the British film industry. Blockbusters are all well and good, the stimulation the senses, they blow the mind. Art and beauty is needed to wrap up the human emotion and give it meaning, realism is what brings it together, what makes the cinema goer believe in and restores a balance in a world that is too eager to make sure that division is seen everywhere.

Pride, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(714 words, estimated 2:51 mins reading time)

Before I Go To Sleep, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Anne-Marie Duff, Dean Charles Chapman, Adam Levy, Jing Lusi, Flynn MacArthur, Charlie Gardner, Llewella Gideon, Rosie MacPherson, Hannah Blamires, Chris Cowlin, Kevin Hudson, Nick Turner.

For Christine Lucas, every day is a fresh start. Where others might resolve to begin the day anew and go out of their way in which to make other’s lives better, for Christine Lucas, each day is a torture, a realisation that she has no idea who she is or why she looks older than her suggested mind age of in her 20s.

Before I Go To Sleep, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(638 words, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

Dreaming Of Kate, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

Maaike Breijman performing Kate Bush songs. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

When Kate Bush announced her first live shows for 35 years, there were bound to be a lot of people that were going to be left disappointed in being unable to see one of Britain’s perhaps most reclusive, certainly iconic, exceptionally gifted female artists of the last 50 years.

Dreaming Of Kate, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(657 words, 1 image, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)