Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Sally Edwards, Philip Whitchurch.
The final moments of anyone’s life, the darkest night before the inevitable dawn, nobody knows what is said when it is discussed in private, when it is between two people who have been married for so long but age, infirmity of spirit and distance between the souls makes the journey one that is poignant and ultimately one filled with regret and doubt.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Jackie Jones, Neil MacDonald, Hayley Hampson, Julian Feria.
The world has not been the same since four lads from Liverpool took over the mass hysteria and pop domination and showed that the post war spirit of change and seeming polite revolution was here to stay and not wrestled back by the forces of the damned pre war sentiment of knowing your place. The 60s was all about the revolution, the counter culture and the moving away from pre-destined supposition; it was time to Shake It Up Baby and start to take a chance in life.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Mike Newstead, Daniel Murphy, Abigail McKenzie, James Markham, Matthew Bromwich.
There are many contenders for the much vaunted and valued position of the fifth Beatle, that often much publicised place in history that has fallen for example on the shoulders of Brian Epstein, George Martin, even possibly Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and perhaps with the wish of many early fans the late Stuart Sutcliffe; however there is one man who arguably stands above them all and it is only thanks to history, historians, to the faithful in Liverpool and Hamburg that the truly remarkable Pete Best is quite rightly remembered as being the Beatle who should have been.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Liam Hale, Sean Stokes.
Somewhere in the dim and distant past there was handed down with great pride, a diktat that suggested emerging talent should be given time to grow, the insistence that the performer would be given whatever they needed to bring their comedy to the foreground, even if it took a couple of years of honing and shaping the sketches or the big idea; it was perhaps a halcyon time when The Goons for example were to become the absolute Kings of all they surveyed.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is an art to fall in love for the first time, the expectations are actually lower in the first minutes of any attraction than if you spin out the desire for a lengthy period; the pedestal only grows higher the longer you take to see the art in someone and the joy in their eyes in an up close and personal way. The quicker the introduction, the sooner it is you can let the infatuation with their song begin.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Live music is important, everybody, the world, his wife and their sometimes ignorant children knows that the live arena is the most important approach for music in the 21st Century. Almost killed by rampant commercialism, the despicability of some streaming services not paying what an artist is due in full for their songs and the process of creativity being turned into a product rather than a little piece of their soul being turned into something beautiful and worth a lot more than money can buy; the live arena is the last natural place in which musicians of any standing get to feel appreciated.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It is a wonder at times that the old streets of Liverpool’s famous heart aren’t to be seen physically bouncing, going up and down vigorously or even just vibrating slowly, swaying to the beat that comes out of the buildings, the energy of a thousand beaten drums and million guitars singing in unison as the parade of live music, its talent and its breathing cool dominate the city’s dynamic pulse.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sennia Nanua, Glenn Close, Paddy Considine, Dominique Tipper, Anamaria Marcinca, Anthony Walsh, Lobna Futers, Fisayo Akinade.
The Girl With All The Gifts, the latest in a long line of Zombie apocalypse films that scream for attention and makes use of the fear that has invaded our thoughts in the last century; yet this contribution to the horror genre is not one that has the usual suspects running the show, this is the calm and fire all in one body, one who can save us but also tear us apart. It is a film that allows the cinema goer room to breathe but one that asks it not to, to take a large deep breath and keep in until the guts are about to burst.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Maria Lovelady, Eithne Browne, Christopher Jordan, Emma Dears, Jake Abraham, Tom Cawte, Roy Carruthers, Phil Hearne.
The taste of 1930s Britain so elegantly captured in Helen Forrester’s Twopence To Cross The Mersey is arguably more palpable, more authentic than any text book that might go on at length to describe the after effects of the Great Depression on those caught in its wake and the sacrifice many individuals had to face just to survive; it is genuine, touching, brutal and one that still pervades the modern era and the way its shapes politics today.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Philip Bretherton.
A national treasure, the most dangerous man in Britain, a true orator, an elder statesman, a cult figure within the political establishment and one for whom the cause, no matter the size, was just and worth fighting for; a true leader of a party that feared him and yet his legacy has lasted longer than any of his fellow Government members or party followers; Tony Benn was arguably the most forward thinking member of Government and the opposition during his incredible tenure in the House of Commons and yet he left so much more to history than can be described adequately in a mere discussion, it needs to be recorded for posterity.