Music and video used to go hand in hand with each other, especially in the 1980s, where it was expected that a well-made video would give a band or artist a huge lift in sales. For anybody who was getting into music in the early part of the tandem craft, songs such as Ultravox’s Vienna, A-Ha’s Take On Me, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Two Tribes, Marillion’s Kayleigh and Genesis’ Land of Confusion were as well remembered for their iconic videos as they were for the creative lyrics and supreme music.
Tag Archives: Liverpool
Venus In Fur, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.AC.T. Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric.
Foreign language films in Britain do tend to attract a niche audience but that should not deter any fan of cinema from attending a showing of Director Roman Polanski’s film Venus in Fur.
In the U.K. audiences do tend to be split in the appreciation of a good film that has travelled across the deep waters of the Channel, it is a shame but it does happen. If an exception should be made for a film in the last ten years then Venus in Fur should be top of the pile. For this highly charged, message filled, erotic and electrifying piece of cinema, the limits of enjoyment are only placed by the confines of the mind’s refusal to accept something new and something truly fascinating, even enthralling and most of all completely and wonderfully strange.
Belle, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T. Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Wilkinson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Emily Watson, Sam Reid, Tom Felton, James Norton, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Sarah Gadon, Matthew Goode, Lauren Julien-Box, Natasha Williams, Alan McKenna, Timothy Walker, David Gant, Charlotte Roach, Rupert Wickham, Bethan Mary-James, Alana Ramsey, Alex Jennings, Daniel Wilde, Susan Brown, James Northcote, Andrew Woodall, Edmund Short, Christopher Middleton.
Pride meets extremism prejudice in Misan Sagay’s well written script for the film Belle.
2014 World Cup: Brazil V Croatia, Match Report.
First published by Ace Magazine online, June 2014.
One game in of this 2014 World Cup and already there will be cynics of F.I.F.A. who might teasingly suggest that the straight line drawn by the Japanese official to mark out the 10 yards for Croatia to stand behind for a free kick was one of the very few acts in the game that didn’t have the whiff of something crooked about it.
Pulp: A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets. Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Nick Banks, Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Richard Hawley, Steve Mackey, Mark Webber, The People of Sheffield.
Despite their best efforts, there was more to British music other than Blur and Oasis in the mid-1990s. The hyped up Brit-Pop phenomenon that saw British music on the crest of a wave built up by hope, a certain amount of propaganda and teenage excitement rather than idealism and realism would soon come tumbling down and thankfully since around 2003, music has gained a perspective, even the enjoyment of discovery again.
Daniel, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Philip Shaun McGuinness, Wesley Wharton, Nick Crosbie.
It does take someone with extreme passion and an undeniable knowledge of certain genres in which the call change the way they are perceived, to make more relevant to modern society, speaks loudest. The latest film which stared Australian actor Russell Crowe, the much talked about Noah, is one example, perhaps poor one, of a story that in The Bible was, even for the atheist, is one that can be a stirring read. Natasia Hodge, musician, actor, singer, director and soon to be company head of B Tales, takes the story of Daniel from the Old Testament, and unlike Noah, delivers a fine piece of work in which, thanks to the excellent cast and the sublime writing of Laura-Kate Barrows and some clever effects and excellent additional music, is itself just as stirring as the Biblical text laid down.
Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Subusiso Mamba, Tonderai Munyevu.
How far would you go to survive in a regime that treats you worse than a cockroach; that demands total obedience of your every waking hour and who can control every moment you make, only reluctantly allowing you to live your life as a free member of society once they have humiliated you enough. The mark of oppression stamped across a nation and deeply into the faces of those who are its citizens.
L’Étranger, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Luke Barton, Charlotte Wilson, George Doran, Liam Hale.
Two of life’s undoubted pleasures are seeing a piece of work for the first ever time on stage, played and directed with so much passion you could almost believe someone could be having an affair with the themes and words of Albert Camus and sending them flowers every weekend, and watching someone you first saw on stage many years ago, trusting your gut that their performance was magnificent, then catching them again and knowing that what you thought of their early promise was correct and they are now just sublime and outstanding. Two great pleasures in one play, L’Étranger, at the Everyman Theatre; life really is surrounded by strangers, clowns and shining brilliance.
Thea Gilmore, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
To be in Liverpool as a music fan you really do have to pinch yourself sometimes just to make sure that what you are feeling is true and not just a karmic evil spirit giving you a good time only to say at the end, “None of it was true, it was all a dream, how’s that for Karma; love the rest of the U.K.”
Nigel Stonier, Gig Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.
Nigel Stonier at The Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
When you are an accomplished and forthright musician and producer, it must be high level of instinct that drives the musical notes down the veins and out into the public arena; especially when you are opening the evening for a very talented lady who can charm the socks off an audience just by opening her mouth and letting the lush tones fall where they may.