Tag Archives: Claire Skinner

McDonald & Dodds: Wedding Fever. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jason Watkins, Tala Gouveia, Claire Skinner, Victoria Hamilton, Jason Hughes, Bill Bailey, Richard Harrington, Esme Coy, Lucinda Dryzek, Holli Dempsey, Charlie Coombes, Piotr Baumann, Charlie Jones, Bhavik C. Pankhania, Misha Domadia, Isaura Barbé-Brown, Joy Richardson, Akshay Sharan,

To the non-romantic, or even those that care little for social construct surrounding over-priced and over exaggerated declarations of love that come with the almost hysterical belief tied in with the convention of Wedding Season, the abuse of want and need, the sense of installing jealousy in a setting where good will should flow is enough to put some over the edge, to see marriage not as a union, but as a chance to even the score.

McDonald & Dodds: Wedding Fever. Television Drama Review. full post

(451 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

McDonald & Dodds: Jinxy Sings The Blues. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jason Watkins, Tale Gouveia, Claire Skinner, Hugh Quarshie, Charlie Jones, Bhavik C. Pankhania, Sophia Myles, Rilwan Abiola Owokoniran, Charley Webb, Will Young, Zaquis Riddick. Jared Garfield, Enzo Squillino Jr., Robert Goodman, Don Gallagher, Roy Smiles, Bill Blackwood, Simon Markey, Matthew Wynn, Michael Howe, Melanie Marshall.

The argument can often be discussed that a social myth or legend can enhance any story that it is placed into, that the subject matter held within the past experience can, and often will, benefit the lore even further.

McDonald & Dodds: Jinxy Sings The Blues. Television Drama Review. full post

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

McDonald & Dodds: The Rule Of Three. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jason Watkins, Tala Gouveia, Claire Skinner, Charlie Jones, Bhavik C. Pankhania, Ace Bhatti, Daniel Lapaine, Lydia Leonard, Pixie Lott, Dipo Ola, John Gordon Sinclair, Toby Stephens, Rico Canadinhas, Siobhan O’ Carroll.

A return to the screens for a detective series that has grown with stature as it progresses to exemplify the sense of charismatic fortitude required when placing two oddly matched people together in order to solve a murder, is as welcome as a sunny, cloudless day after a month of constant storms that threaten to overwhelm the population with a sense of permanent gloom and floods of grief.

McDonald & Dodds: The Rule Of Three. Television Drama Review. full post

(425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Coma. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Jason Watkins, Jonas Armstrong, Claire Skinner, David Bradley, David Mumeni, Joe Barber, Matilda Firth, Darren Strange, Kayla Meikle, Adrienn Réti, Craige Els, Caroline Boulton, Dan Code, Anita Major, Ralph Berkin, Sagar Arya, Kwadwo Kwateng, Shila Bentley.

For the majority of us, avoiding conflict is a day to day occupation, we have turned our eyes away from the bullying and intimidation on our streets, and the wonder why cannot face the moral questions of the massacre of a people a few thousand miles away; one action is a direct response to the suffering on any scale…we don’t wish to get involved lest the eyes of evil in all its forms fall upon us and we become the next target.

Coma. Television Drama Review. full post

(491 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

McDonald & Dodds: Clouds Across The Moon. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Tala Gouveia, Jason Watkins, Max Bennett, Gerran Howell, Charlie Chambers, Liv Sacofsky, Danyal Ismail, Pearce Quigley, Claire Skinner, Joanna Riding, Joan Iyiola, Stefan Adegbola, Grace Francis.

There is a subsection of the police procedural crime fiction that the armchair detective will rave about, as if solving a murder wasn’t good enough for them, that they can battle their own wits against the investigator in charge, it is when the villain is so conniving, so  devious in their passion to prove they are just as clever as the one chasing them, if not more so, the complications presented to the viewer are boundless and enthralling to decipher.

McDonald & Dodds: Clouds Across The Moon. Television Review. full post

(418 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

McDonald & Dodds: War Of The Rose. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tala Gouveia, Jason Watkins, Claire Skinner, Jack Riddiford, Lily Sacofsky, Saira Choudhry, Rosie Day, Nitin Ganatra, Nicholas Goh, Siobhan Hewlett, Sarah Parish, Rhashan Stone, Andrew Greenough, Mark Meadows, Emily Joyce, Richard Dixon, Leah Balmforth, Flora London, Romani Wright, Bex Hainsworth.

It’s not what you know, it’s who you can reach…the modern mantra of the social influencer is such that it pervades into our everyday lives, and it divides opinion as easily as it spreads its word and sales pitch on the internet.

McDonald & Dodds: War Of The Rose. Television Review. full post

(532 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

McDonald & Dodds: A Billion Beats. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jason Watkins, Tala Gouveia, Jack Riddiford, Claire Skinner, Lily Sacofsky, Danyal Ismail, Paul McGann, Ben Batt, Daisy Bevan, Kelvin Fletcher, Paul Forman, Naoki Mori, John Omole, Bluey Robinson, Bill Skinner, Bridgitta Roy, Nino Furuhata, Louise Jameson.

There are sports that seem universally embraced and then there are those that to a proportion of the population is not for them, that is not only fuelled by a passion that defies logic, but can seem reckless, spoiled by money, out of the realms to ordinary men and women, and in the case of motor racing, is all about the one second glimpse of the vehicle, a second in which A Billion Beats of the heart can seem to be over in a flash.

McDonald & Dodds: A Billion Beats. Television Review. full post

(490 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Macdonald & Dodds: Belvedere. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jason Watkins, Tala Gouveia, Jack Riddiford, Claire Skinner, Lily Sacofsky, Danyal Ismail, Sian Phillips, Alan Davies, Catherine Tyldesley, Holly Aird, Gabriel Bisset Smith, Charlie Chambers.

The locked room mysteries have not quite had their day, but they certainly have exhausted the imagination of many a writer; so much so that it will take a phenomenal tale worthy of being presented by a supreme great to revive significant interest in the genre once again.

Macdonald & Dodds: Belvedere. Television Review. full post

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

Vanity Fair. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Olivia Cooke, Tom Bateman, Johnny Flynn, Claudia Jessie, Michael Palin, Simon Russell Beale, Ellie Kendrick, Robert Pugh, Charlie Rowe, Sian Clifford, Martin Clunes, David Flynn, Matthew Baynton, Monica Dolan, Patrick FitzSymons, Felicity Montague, Claire Skinner, Peter Wright, Toby Williams, Elizabeth Barrington, Richie Campbell, Frances de la Tour, Mike Grady, Anthony Head, Suranne Jones.

Vanity Fair. Television Review. full post

(538 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Midsomer Murders: Death By Persuassion. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Samuel West, Susie Blake, Abigail Cruttenden, Claire Skinner, Nicholas Gleaves, Georgie Glen, Chris Lew Kum Hoi, John Macmillan, Anamaria Marinca, Paul Shelley, Thalissa Teixera, Karl Theobald, Jodie Tyack, Lotte Rice.

You can arguably do no wrong by having the name Jane Austen come to lips of those you are indebted to performing in front of; a sure-fire winner, only the Brontes could lead the television or cinema audience to sit up and take notice more readily, even the most tenuous link will do, and it is that the scriptwriters have a moral duty to not let the work descend into a screenplay anarchy, dependent upon creating a pastiche which is below gratitude and honour to the much-loved writer, which sparks of desperation and folly.

Midsomer Murders: Death By Persuassion. Television Review. full post

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