Tag Archives: Mark Gatiss

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)

Sapphire And Steel: The Passenger. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Mark Gatiss, Hugo Myatt, Jackie Skarvellis, Neil Henry, Claire Louise Connolly.

Guilt, or the shouldering of blame and responsibility, even if by all logical deductions incapable or culpable of the crimes committed, is a disease of the soul that will keep eating away at your mind until there is nothing left to be devoured. We should accept the blame, we must feel the remorse of actions that we undertake which has caused someone pain, inflicted misery, affected their life, or even taken it, however, there comes a time when the feeling and effects of guilt, especially when innocence is forced to accept or adapt to the cognitive association to which our own inner desires may not yet have asserted themselves.

Sapphire And Steel: The Passenger. Audio Drama Review. full post

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

James Bond: From Russia With Love. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Toby Stephens, Eileen Atkins, John Sessions, Tim Pigott-Smith, Mark Gatiss, John Glover, Aileen Mowat, John Standing, Janie Dee, Julian Sands, Matthew Wolf, Olga Fedori, Micky Stratford, Nathaniel Parker, Martin Jarvis.

It could be argued that the fan and the listener alike have been short changed when it comes to adaptations of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels for the radio; whether this is down to the estate not wishing to decry from the scores of films or because it has been long thought that such books cannot be captured with just a voice rather than the dramatic sequence that film provides is for another debate, and yet there is something to be said for being able to see 007 aim his trilby at the hat stand, to see the devastation of his actions take place, rather than just match your imagination to the actor’s voice.

James Bond: From Russia With Love. Audio Drama Review. full post

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

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)