Author Archives: admin

His Dark Materials. Series Three. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, James McAvoy, Amir Wilson, Will Keen, Lewin Lloyd, Jade Anouka, Simone Kirby, Chipo Chung, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje, Jonathan Aris, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Jamie Ward, Sian Clifford, Alex Hassell, Lia Williams, Simon Harrison, Amber Fitzgerald-Woolfe, Nina Sosanya, Andrew Scott, Lin Manuel Miranda, Victoria Hamilton, Kit Connor, Joe Tandberg, Sope Dirisu, Lindsay Duncan, Kate Ashfield, Emma Tate, Patricia Allison, Tuppence Middleton, Sorcha Groundsell, Wade Briggs, Peter Wright.

His Dark Materials. Series Three. Television Review. full post

(541 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong’o, Daniel Gurira, Winston Duke, Tenoch Huerta, Martin Freeman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Dominque Thorne, Florence Kasumba, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena.

As a mark of respect to the late Chadwick Boseman, the tribute to a fine actor’s work, should not be in question, but maybe the timing of the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the way in which the focus was shifted on as one of Marvel’s true great and Golden Age heroes was almost relegated in his pedigree and scope, or even in the way that as a finale to a phase it was messed around should all be given sharp focus on how not to give the excellent Ryan Coogler short shrift when it comes to storytelling.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Film Review. full post

(542 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Seeing Red: Keep The Fire Burning/Edzell. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Whatever makes you feel passion, it is possible that you are Seeing Red.

There is a melancholic feeling that is understandable to all, even those that decry it, putting it down to self-indulgence, insisting it is a decadence, an unrestraint of emotions; to these we should ignore for they have forgotten what it means to feel, to hold love, to embrace pity, to acknowledge the luxury that is an demonstrative response to being human and all its misery and pleasures in equal measure.

Seeing Red: Keep The Fire Burning/Edzell. Album Review. full post

(395 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

The Signalman. Audio Drama Review. (2022).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Samuel West, James Purefoy, Sally Orrock, Nicholas Murchie.

Honour those who find their inspiration in the darkest chapters of their life, for they have seen Hell and are still able to inform you of the dangers to come.

Charles Dickens’ tale of The Signalman is one of the most creative stories from the British writer, shorter than his other works of fiction, but one that gets to grips with the century’s fear of the technology of the time, the sense of dread that came with innovation, the sounds of machines.

The Signalman. Audio Drama Review. (2022). full post

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

Nolly. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Con O’Neill, Augustus Prew, Mark Gatiss, Antonia Bernath, Chloe Harris, Lloyd Griffiths, Richard Lintern, Bethany Antonia, Clare Foster, Emily Butcher, Matt Crosby, Emily Langham, Adele Taylor, Adam Morris, Kerry Washington, Sophie Lucas, Philip Gascoyne, Max Brown, Paulo Braghetto, Tim Wallers.

For anybody who had not yet opened their eyes and stared at the fuzzy images of life at a time when even five terrestrial stations seemed excessive, to find out that there were simple homegrown programmes that could command such loyalty of viewers that over 15 million people would tune in and watch convoluted plots and the now famous ‘wonky sets’, they would consider it a preposterous notion, absurd nostalgia that could not be true.

Nolly. Television Drama Review. full post

(497 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

David Fisher: Doctor Who – The Androids Of Tara. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For a certain period of time, it seemed that you could not watch Doctor Who on a Saturday evening, the resolute fan favourite Tom Baker at the helm and controls of the Tardis, without the enormity of having the power of an android on screen, a servant, a slave, an all-powerful machine that would terrorise the thoughts and imagination of younger viewers and seasoned viewers alike.

David Fisher: Doctor Who – The Androids Of Tara. Book Review. full post

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

A Spy Among Friends. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Guy Pearce, Damian Lewis, Anna Maxwell Martin, Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Kunken, Monika Gossmann, Nicholas Rowe, Karel Roden, Puiu Mircea Lascus, Lucy Russell, Lucy Akhurst, Jennifer Marsala, Alexander Terentyev, Anastasia Hille, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Steven Elder, Thomas Arnold, Gilly Gilchrist, Daniel Lapaine, Jacob James Beswick, Mark Flitton, Rick Warden, Colin Mace, Jed Aukin, Anna Andresen, David Coomber, Jay Simpson, Lucinda Raikes, Nicholas Pritchard, Morgane Ferru, Denis Khoroshko, Kate Fahy, Jolyon Coy, George Taylor, Reza Diako, Alice Barclay, Tugba Tirpan, Ruth Clarson, Edward Baker-Duly, Roger Barclay, Orlando Wells, Justine Mitchell, Mark Tandy.

A Spy Among Friends. Television Drama Review. full post

(773 words, estimated 3:06 mins reading time)

The Bordellos: The Sunday Experience. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The Sunday Experience means different things to different age groups.

There are those to whom Sunday was steeped in a mystery of illusion, the world grinded on but for them it was still, the only movement detected was in the consistency of the gravy and the quickness of the finger as you pressed play/record on the tape deck to catch the latest hits surfacing around the top forty.

The Bordellos: The Sunday Experience. E.P. Review. full post

(413 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Assume Nothing: The Hunt For Typhoid Mary. Podcast Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Few people are synonymous or as intrinsically linked to a disease as that as Mary Mallon. The full name of the Irish immigrant to 19th Century New York might leave a blank look upon the face of many, but that single given name, coupled and tied with the terror of Typhoid, will leave a scar of realisation, the chill of how infection and disease are humanity’s greatest threat to existence.

Assume Nothing: The Hunt For Typhoid Mary. Podcast Series Review. full post

(518 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Alice. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Keke Palmer, Common, Jonny Lee Miller, Caius Charles, Madelon Curtis, Kenneth Farmer, Natasha Yvette Williams, Jaxon Goldenberg, Craig Stark, Alicia Witt, Davod Andrew Nash, Jim McKeny, Katie Gill, Sharonne Lanier, Janet L. Burns, Durrell Lyons, Roderick Dorsey, Eddie King.

To own another human being is an abhorrence.

It is a statement of fact, a truth that is universal, and yet often ignored by those by whose own admission they see it is a right, an admission declared for all to see without a shred of shame in their hearts, that to enslave a person, another human being, is to attain a status…it is sick, depraved, and yet still goes on in the world. Across all cultures, men, women, children, all creeds, all colours, slavery is business.

Alice. Film Review. full post

(478 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)