Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
As the lights go down inside the Philharmonic Hall, the anticipation felt by the audience as they await the son of the legendary Frank Zappa, the just as eminent Dweezil Zappa, was akin to urged to be patient before the start of the Big Bang, everybody knew how important it was, everybody sensed it, they just couldn’t wait for it to begin.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Acclaimed opera singer and cabaret star Le Gateau Chocolat brought a brilliantly intimate new solo show to the Unity Theatre as part of Liverpool’s ongoing homotopia festival occuring throughout the city as he charted his personal difficulties and triumphs with depression, identity and music.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Gillian Hardie, Keddy Sutton.
With a song in their hearts…well, more of a set of tunes and harmonies that has been lovingly taken from one of the much adored musical of all time and which has had a treatment most befitting of satire and the huge comic embrace that only Keddy Sutton, Gillian Hardie and Homotopia could wonderfully provide.
Cast: Michael Hugo, Samantha Robinson, Angela Bain, Howard Chadwick, Claire Storey, Paul Barnhill, Alan McMahon, Robert Pickavance, Dyfig Morris, Sophie Hatfield, Hester Arden.
Whilst the overall central theme of The Grand Gesture may be worrying to some and have others wondering how you can have a comedy set around the premise of a man wanting to end his life, it shouldn’t though detract from the very superb way that Northern Broadsides, perhaps one of the keenly anticipated companies that makes its way on regular basis to the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre, took on Nikolai Erdman’s brilliant work The Suicide.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There are many places in which the soul may take you during the hours of dark in Liverpool. The abundance of theatres is only beaten by advantage that London has in its sheer size and with a venue to fit almost every occasion and almost every band that could ever hope to find its way to the city that defines culture in England. The night life is there for the taking. What happens during the day light hours when those who find solace in the brightly lit confines of the theatre or music venue find themselves in the heart of the city and in need of a different type of comfort, namely the pleasant surroundings of somewhere that offers good food and refreshment?
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Orto Ignatiussen, Phaldut Sharma, Amy Warren, Basher Savage.
There are seminal moments in cinema, moments of pure genius that you have to applaud and make note of to tell your grandchildren just how exceptional the film was so they can be inspired to find their own defining film moment. The instant when you knew that all your cinema going days had been but a test for your senses to get acclimatised to for the sheer majesty that is about to hit them in Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron’s mouth-watering, jaw dropping, heart thumping spectacle, Gravity.
Bryan Ferry at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in 2013. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
From the moment Bryan Ferry purposefully steps foot onto the Philharmonic Hall stage, there didn’t seem to be a single female fan in the audience who has remained seated for the former Roxy Music icon. Such is the sheer magnetism, the undiluted animal appeal of Bryan Ferry that despite the fact that it has been an incredibly long time without him coming to Liverpool, his music, the way he makes his fans, of either gender, feel, you can only applaud his stature as he performs the music that made him one of the great stars of his generation.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Mark Arends, Tim Dutton, Stephen Fewell, Christopher Patrick Nolan, Matthew Spencer, Gavin Spokes, Mandi Symonds, Hara Yannas, Richard Bremmer, Joshua Higgott.
To do justice to arguably one of the finest pieces of English Literature of the 20th Century on stage takes a team so immersed into what they are trying to achieve, that all else is secondary. To bring to life the horror that awaits Winston Smith from the spectre of Big Brother that is stamped like an impregnable tattoo all over the face of decency in 1984 takes a fantastic director, an adaptor of work who can make the simmering tension boil over again and again and two men you can believe in from start to finish to capture the spirit of a nation, of a world that has become the stuff of nightmares.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 91/2 /10
There are very few performers that will attempt to capture the magic, the very special experience of a gig twice in the same venue in the same year. Then again, it may have been thought impossible to recapture the very essence of a classic in the first place. However when the venue is the prestigious Philharmonic Hall and the artist is the phenomenal guitarist Steve Hackett, it really shouldn’t come as any surprise at all that the musician and his finely crafted band should once more come to Liverpool and give the legion of fans in the city yet another night to remember.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: David Judge, John McGrellis, Ged McKenna, Molly Taylor.
The world is forever changing, no sooner have you got to grips with one situation than another comes along to take yet another swipe at you and push you to the brink. Such is the world of Scrappers and those living in a world in which is always under threat by new methods.