Tag Archives: Liverpool

Alien Covenant, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Amy Seimetz, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, Uli Latukefu, Tess Haubrich, Lorelei King, Goran D. Kleut, Andrew Crawford, James Franco, Guy Pearce.

Perhaps once upon a time it would have been too much for a cinema audience to ask that the phenomenally superb and Box office smash Alien would ever get the treatment it deserved in sequels; to think it could happen in a prequel was beyond even the stretch of imagination of many a die-hard fan and yet lurking in the shadows, skulking with shiny black skin and acid for blood is the 21st Century equivalent of a nightmare made real, the outstanding Alien Covenant.

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

(545 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

The Sum, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Patrick Brennan, George Caple, Pauline Daniels, Laura Dos Santos, Emily Hughes, Tom Kanji, Asha Kingsley, Melanie La Barrie, Dean Nolan, Zelina Rebeiro, Keddy Sutton, Liam Tobin.

The balance sheet that people live their lives by, the counting out of every penny just to make ends meet, the sense of never getting ahead of the game and spiralling ever deeper into the world of debt, of being on the streets. This is a world in which the feeling of inhumane, of intolerable suffering, is so prevalent, so close to everybody’s thoughts that it is surprising that there is less vocal anger than there should be at politicians who see food banks as a complex reason, who see the poor as deserving and it always feels like the world of politics is one step away from re-introducing that most evil of Victorian values, the workhouse.

The Sum, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(546 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

Procal Harum, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool sound and Vision Rating * * * *

They are responsible for one of the most endearing and enduring songs of all time, the sense that without them adding the classic A Whiter Shade of Pale to the musical history books, that it would still be played 50 years later as memories of the Summer of Love captivate the mind is more than astonishing. It is alongside the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, of Woodstock, of the emergence of Pink Floyd,  Jefferson Airship, The Small Faces, of images of humanity stepping forth on an alien surface, the Mamas and the Papas and the flourish birth of Progressive Rock that defines the period of 67-69 as one of great highs daunting hopes.

Procal Harum, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

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

Anaïs Vila, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Liverpool will always throw open its arms to the adventurous, to the talented and the seekers of more enlightened thought, it is the nature of the city to do so, it is in entwined in the D.N.A. of its people to share it, to talk about it and not keep it a secret. To travel across Europe, perhaps in the most awkward of times to hit the continent in an era of peace, to play in the home of British popular music is to be saluted. It is the side effect of the vote to leave Europe that people forget that art cannot exist without an audience, to have the conversation and to learn is a prerequisite of being human, the inquisitiveness to learn something new from another culture an unalienable right to the open minded.

Anaïs Vila, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool. full post

(484 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Robert Cray, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Robert Cray is undoubtedly a legend when it comes to the Blues, for many fans of the genre he is the one artist that carried the Blues aloft between the end of the 1970s and the turn of the century with any sense of form, style, beauty and care, the true link between the Golden Age and the momentum that has followed since the final years of void in which Blues arguably, like Jazz and Progressive Rock died a little death every day.

Robert Cray, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(446 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Lady Macbeth, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Florence Pugh, Christopher Fairbanks, Cosmo Jarvis, Naomi Ackie, Bill Fellows, Paul Hilton, Golda Rosheuvel, Ian Cunningham, Fleur Houdijk, Rebecca Manley, Kema Sikazwe, David Kirkbride, Joseph Teague, Cliff Burnett, Anton Palmer.

 

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

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

Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume Two. Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn, Laura Haddock.

All the fun of the original but with added family angst, if you are going to describe Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume Two in any way that resembles a nutshell then you can only go by that, a great family film that has kept Marvel Studios firmly in the top racoon place when it comes to portraying superheroes on film and that D.C. has a long way to go.

Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume Two. Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Sam Lyon, Gig Review. Paradise Street Stage, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Sam Lyon in Liverpool. April 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

There is always time to stop and look into the eyes of another soul, to understand if possible even just a fraction of their whole being, for in that the songbird makes the day seem beautiful and the humanity shown is enough to make the recipient sing with even more pleasure than ever.

Sam Lyon, Gig Review. Paradise Street Stage, Liverpool. full post

(398 words, 1 image, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Paul John Walker, Gig Review. Paradise Street Stage, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Paul John Walker in Liverpool, April 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

 

The constant revolution that transpires across Liverpool’s music scene is almost a daily walk through just what makes the area such a magnificent beast to appreciate; the impact of the past, the blast created by the sound of The Beatles still reverberating round the city over 50 years on, its echo enthusing the new generation of musicians, either born in the city or those that make their way from obscurer pastures, that keep making sure that Liverpool retains its place as the holder of song writing love.

Paul John Walker, Gig Review. Paradise Street Stage, Liverpool. full post

(440 words, 1 image, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Eleanor Nelly, Gig Review. Paradise Street Stage, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Eleanor Nelly, Liverpool. April 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

If Paradise is half as nice as Liverpool on sunny but freezing cold day then to be honest it can only be enhanced by the sound of one of the city’s daughters being heard in the centre of the main shopping area and being so entrancing that she could be heard at either end of the main street and possibly the echo reverberating all the way to Nashville where she was going to spend the next week on the next step of her music career.

Eleanor Nelly, Gig Review. Paradise Street Stage, Liverpool. full post

(447 words, 1 image, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)