Tag Archives: Mark Gatiss

The Favourite. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Mark Gatiss, Emma Delves, Faye Daveney, Paul Swaine, Jennifer White, LillyRose Stevens, Denise Mark, Willem Dalby, Edward Aczel, James Smith, Carolyn Saint-Pe, John Locke, Nicholas Hoult.

Favouritism is not just about what makes you stand out in the public gaze, it is the result of who fancies you, who wants you intimately, regardless of whether they declare it openly or keep it buried deep in their subconscious, a concept that is frowned upon but none the less wrapped in truth. You get asked who The Favourite is, who you want to see come out on top, and for the most part that sentiment is born out of lust, not out of cold logic.

The Favourite. Film Review. full post

(507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

The Dead Room. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Simon Callow, Anjli Mohindra, Susan Penhaligon, Joshua Oakes-Rogers.

It was turn of the 20th Century author M.R. James who asserted that the spectres within a ghost story should always have malevolent intent if the story is to work, if it is to prick the conscious of the reader and give them the type of scare in which boundaries are crossed between the world we see and the domain of the dead.

The Dead Room. Television Review. full post

(488 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

The Haunting Of M.R. James. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mark Gatiss, Fenella Woolgar, Ryan Whittle, Gerald McDermott, Cameron Percival, Ronny Jhutti, Michael Bertenshaw, Tony Turner, Ewan Bailey, Chris Harper, Sam Dale, Lewis Bray.

We live in a world that is rapidly losing its sense of wonder, of having everything explained and leaving the thought of fancy and intrigue hanging in the air as if somehow resembling the figure of dishonest fruit hiding knowledge from the feast of humanity.

The Haunting Of M.R. James. Radio Drama Review. full post

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

Christopher Robin. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Oliver Ford Davies, Ronke Adekoluejo, Adrian Scarborough, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ken Nwosu, John Dagleish, Amanda Lawrence, Katy Carmichael, Orton O’ Brien, Tristan Sturrock, Jasmine-Simone Charles, Paul Chahidi, Simon Farnaby, Mackenzie Crook, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Nick Mohammed, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Okonedo, Sara Sheen, Toby Jones.

It is, with hindsight, easy to suggest that humanity in the 20th Century lost its way, that we as a collected species lost our wonder and our innocence to a new way of thinking, a rational that arguably had its genesis in the self-imposed, stiff upper lipped facade philosophy created by the Victorians and to which even now has eaten away at our ability to forget the dreams we had as children and the wondrous stories we could weave.

Christopher Robin. Film Review. full post

(556 words, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

The Mercy. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Colin Forth, Rachel Weisz, David Thewlis, Mark Gatiss, Andrew Buchan, Finn Elliot, Jonathan Bailey, Ken Stott, Adrian Schiller, Sam Hoare, Kit Conner, Eleanor Stagg, Simon McBurney.

There is a fine line between the hopeless romantic adventurer and the lie told in which to preserve the memory of what you set out to achieve; it is a line so thin that you cannot but help pity and remorse for those left behind to pick up the pieces of the notion and want of derring-do and you cannot help but feel the blur of admiration that strikes home, the sense of forlorn hope that cannot but be helped be seen as glorious failure and which makes the most interesting of stories.

The Mercy. Film Review. full post

(507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, David Bradley, Mark Gatiss, Pearl Mackie, Lily Travers, Jared Garfield, Toby Whithouse, Jenna Coleman, Jodie Whittaker, Matt Lucas, Nikki Amuka-Bird.

How many regenerations have you lived through? It could be a question in which the critics decry as nostalgic, one that avoids a sense of action or purpose to the story line, the conclusion to a life is the only thing worthy as a new set of eyes to see the universe with fresh hope and a new catch phrase. To do this though misses the point, it shows that arguably you might not have been paying attention, or consumed with eager optimism for the fresh face to appear at the end.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time. Television Review. full post

(627 words, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

Gunpowder. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Kit Harington, Peter Mullan, Liv Tyler, Mark Gatiss, Shaun Dooley, Tom Cullen, Edward Holcroft, Robert Emms, Derek Riddell, Pedro Casablanc, David Bamber, Daniel West, Luke Neal, Luke Broughton, Philip Hill-Pearson, Richard Glover, Hugh Alexander, Simon Kunz, Fergus O’ Donnell,  Thom Ashley, Sian Webber, Kate Wood,  Sean Rigby, Beatrice Comins, Martin Lindley, Kevin Eldon, Robert Gwylim.

Gunpowder. Television Review. full post

(510 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Taboo, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Tom Hardy, David Hayman, Jonathan Pryce, Oona Chaplin, Jessie Buckley, Stephen Graham, Richard Dixon, Leo Bill, Edward Hogg, Ruby May-Martinwood, Franka Potente, James Greaves, Michael Kelly, Jefferson Hall, Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Jason Watkins, Scroobius Pip, Nicholas Woodeson, Tom Hollander, Mark Gatiss, Christopher Fairbank, Lucian Msamati, Fiona Skinner, Marina Hands, Edward Fox.

Taboo, Television Review. full post

(500 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, Andrew Scott, Jack Lowden, Caren Pistorius, Alex Jennings, Harriet Walter, Mark Gatiss, John Sessions, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Pip Carter, Jackie Clune, Will Attenborough, Maximilian Befort.

In a time when such things are being questioned, that the extreme right have hijacked once more the very ground of what should be decency and respect and turned into a quagmire of ignorance and sick attitude, Denial is perhaps one of the most sensitive and timely films to come to cinema in recent years.

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

(469 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Sherlock: The Final Problem. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Mark Gatiss, Sian Brooke, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Louise Brealey, Amanda Abbington, Andrew Scott, Art Malik, Timothy Carlton, Wanda Ventham, Simon Kunz, Richard Crehan, Matt Young, Tam Mutu.

Sherlock: The Final Problem. Television Review. full post

(505 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)