Tag Archives: Mark Gatiss

Lot 249. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kit Harrington, Freddie Fox, John Heffernan, Colin Ryan, Andrew Horton, James Swanton, Jonathan Rigby.

A good ghost story at Christmas is fitting, it reminds us not to take life for granted, it urges us to think of those we have lost, not just in the passing of the calendar year, but throughout our lives; for in that memory, we understand that time is fleeting, it is corporeal, and at times the lesson it wishes to teach is one to which is required to scare us into doing the right thing.

Lot 249. Television Drama Review. full post

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

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Part One). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Frederick Schmidt, Mariela Garriga, Cary Elwes, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma.

You don’t escape from the rage of a volcano by standing still, you cannot avoid the avalanche by staring deep into the bleak white void as it hurtles towards you; and you don’t get to ignore the latest offering from the Mission Impossible franchise by declaring that it doesn’t appeal as an action film just because it is fronted by Tom Cruise.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Part One). Film Review. full post

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

The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Audio Drama/Orchestration Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mark Gatiss, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Sam Dale, Ean Bailey, Clare Corbett, Carl Prekopp, Ryan Early.

You would be forgiven for thinking that Arthur Conan Doyle’s seminal gothic tale, The Hound of The Baskervilles, could not be adapted in any shape or form more than what has gone before; you would be forgiven, but as with anything that has history nipping at its ankles, the reality is that as long as the human mind can imagine it, then that beast, that means of murder and intrigue can be shown to continue to haunt the dreams of all who dare try to solve the mystery taking place in the lonely, haunting, dangerous moors of south west England.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Audio Drama/Orchestration Review. full post

(423 words, estimated 1:42 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)

Operation Mincemeat. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, Penelope Wilton, Kelly Macdonald, Johnny Flynn, Mark Gatiss, Paul Ritter, Jason Issacs, Simon Russell Beale, Hattie Morahan, Will Keen, Alex Jennings, Jonjo O’Neill, Rufus Wright, Ruby Bentall, Charlotte Hamblin, Lorne Macfadyen, Casper Jennings, Dolly Gadsdon, Michael Bott, Ellie Haddinton, Paul Lancaster, Simon Rouse, Amy Marston, Gabrielle Creevy, Nicholas Rowe, Alexander Beyer, Markus von Lingen, Nico Birnbaum, James Fleet, Mark Bonnar, Javier Godino, Pedro Casablanc, Laura Morgan, Miguel Guardiola, Pep Tosar, Alba Brunet, Oscar Zafra.

Operation Mincemeat. Film Review. full post

(676 words, estimated 2:42 mins reading time)

A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mark Gatiss, Nicholas Farrell, James Backway, Angelina Chudi, Joni Ayton-Kent, Zak Ford-Williams, Aoife Gaston, Edward Harrison, Sarah Ridgeway, Joe Shire, Christopher Godwin.

We must put the time of year into perspective, we must understand the reasons, or even accept that there are none in which seem logical, that Christmas as a holiday has become one of division and brimming with its own sense of dogma.

A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story. Television Review. full post

(576 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Inside No.9: Merrily, Merrily. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, Diane Moran, Patrice Naiambana.

A reunion, of sorts, and one that perhaps many thought might never occur, but it should never have been in doubt that Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, and Mark Gatiss, the delightful acting team behind The League Of Gentlemen, would one day be seen together in the same scenes, and providing a deeply satisfying look at the darker side of life.

Inside No.9: Merrily, Merrily. Television Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: Dalek Universe 1. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: David Tennant, Jane Slavin, Joe Sims, Juliet Aubrey, Nicholas Briggs, Maria Teresa Creasey, Mark Gatiss, Chris Jarman, Kevin McNally, Gemma Whelen.

Time has a habit of bringing us back to that place we think we have left behind forever.

The Doctor, especially in his tenth incarnation, has lived through the emotional turmoil of losing companions, his people, and at times, his own perspective on the Universe; pushed through time and sometimes not able to withstand the pressure facing him from all sides. He might win, he might save the day, but it feels like a loss, a devastating failure in which his actions to save Gallifrey in a previous life still echo around him like marbles in a tin can.

Doctor Who: Dalek Universe 1. Audio Drama Review. full post

(549 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

The War Master: Anti-Genesis. Series Four. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Derek Jacobi, Mark Gatiss, Sean Carlsen, Nicholas Briggs, Zaraah Abrahams, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Vokash Bhai, Daniel Brocklebank, Richard Clifford, Ben Crystal, Christopher Harper, Will Kirk, Jordan Renzo, Gavin Swift, Franchi Webb.

To defeat a Master, you have to find someone of equal stature and terrifyingly frenetic mind; after all, no matter how many times The Doctor seems to vanquish his old friend and best enemy, somehow, no matter the incarnation, they always seem to fall short of complete victory.

The War Master: Anti-Genesis. Series Four. Audio Drama Review. full post

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

Sapphire And Steel: Perfect Day. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Mark Gatiss, Victoria Carling, Philip McGough, Daniel Weyman, Matthew Steer, Caroline Morris.

Humanity has an unnerving ability to create havoc and pressure on itself that in the individual comes across, at best as anxiety, at worst domineering deflection, the trauma of a past event manifesting itself as control, of wanting supposedly the best for someone in your life but directing, supervising every minute detail of the event in question, that they are left on the point of mental suffocation, of supplicating their own desires for the safety of keeping quiet so as not to cause an argument.

Sapphire And Steel: Perfect Day. Audio Drama Review. full post

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