Tag Archives: Monica Dolan

Sherwood. Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: David Morrisey, Lorraine Ashbourne, Monica Dolan, Robert Lindsey, Michael Balogun, Philip Jackson, Perry Jackson, Lesley Manville, Stephen Dillane, Christine Bottomley, Adam Hugill. Bill Jones, Robert Emms, Aisling Loftus, Jordan Myrie, Ria Zmitrowicw, Bethany Asher, Oliver Huntingdon, Conor Deane, David Harewood, Sharlene Whyte, Jennifer Hennessy, Charles Dale, Tyrese Eaton-Dyce.

Some wounds run too deep to allow them time to heal in just a generation, the anguish, the sense of betrayal, the sense of unfaithfulness in the family, in the community is a powerful reminder of hate that creeps into the blood when loyalties and ideologies force themselves into that which once bound all.

Sherwood. Series Two. Television Review. full post

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

Official Secrets. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Rhys Ifans, Katherine Kelly, Indira Varma, MyAnna Buring, Kenneth Cranham, Jack Farthing, Tasmin Grieg, Hattie Morahan, Jeremy Northam, Conleith Hill, Hanako Footman, Shaun Dooley, Monica Dolan, Chris Larkin, Ray Panthaki, Clive Francis, Peter Guinness, John Heffernan, Angus Wright, Adam Bakri.

 

A Government not afraid of the possibility of its people rebelling against them is one that surely does not exist, for the very nature of Government is to lie through its teeth and sow discord under the banner of freedom. It is up to the individual of how much they can stomach, what lies they are willing to let stand and which ones they need to follow closely in the hope that they will be exposed, and which ones they might openly defy.

Official Secrets. Film Review. full post

(533 words, estimated 2:08 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)

A Very English Scandal. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Alex Jennings, Patricia Thorpe, Naomi Battrick, Jason Watkins, Alice Orr-Ewing, Monica Dolan, Blake Harrison, Michelle Dotrice, Eve Myles, David Bamber, Jonathan Hyde, Rhys Parry-Jones, Dyfan Dwfor, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Susan Woolridge, Peter Gardiner, Michael Culkin, Paul Freeman, Adrian Scarborough.

The Establishment has a way of winning every war it comes across, no scandal it seems is big enough to truly able to topple a Government, no outrage large enough to permanently harm the elected body that are there to supposedly look after the nation, its interests and its people; it is not the done thing and no matter who gets hurt, or whose reputation comes under fire, the party, the machine, the leadership continues, even if the face changes.

A Very English Scandal. Television Review. full post

(520 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

Inside No. 9: Once Removed. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Monica Dolan, Nick Moran, Reece Shearsmith, David Calder, Steve Pemberton, Emilia Fox, Rufus Jones.

The story never starts where you think it does; you could walk in to a narrative that is in its infancy and still find that there is a whole back story that you missed, that if you had got there ten minutes earlier then the whole complexion of the story would have been completely different, a scene missing might have seen you take another side in the argument, a stance taken. It all boils down to where you think the story actually starts and if you can live with being perhaps Once Removed from the beginning then that is something you have to live with.

Inside No. 9: Once Removed. Television Review. full post

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

Strike: The Silkworm. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Holliday Grainger, Tim McInnerny, Dominic Mafham, Tasmin Topolski, Tom Greaves, Monica Dolan, Liz Williams, Rob Callender, Jeremy Swift, Peter Sullivan, Dorothy Atkinson, Catherine Bailey.

Why anyone would want to be friends with a novelist or any form of writer who sees the muse in almost anything is one of those rare questions that never truly gets answered; to be a friend of a writer is to open yourself up to the knowledge that some part of your personality might be the basis of a character’s reason for existing somewhere down the line.

Strike: The Silkworm. Television Review. full post

(366 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Witness For The Prosecution. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Toby Jones, Andrea Riseborough, Billy Howle, Hayley Carmichael, Monica Dolan, Kim Cattrall, David Haig, Miranda Nolan, Charles De’Ath, Dorian Lough, Paul Ready, Tim McMullan, Robert East, Adam Jowett, Andrew Havill, Ted Robins, Reid Anderson, William Atkinson, Grant Crookes, Carla Langley, Paul Dallison, Keith Lomas, Charlotte Mason-Apps, Dennis O’ Donnell, Graham Partington, Nicola-Jayne Wells, Patricia Winker.

Agatha Christie is such a staple of television and film that sometimes it can be hard to overlook or forgive when an adaptation has not quite hit the high marks expected of it, sometimes you have let it wash over you and remember the good times, when a marvellous suspense mystery would have the viewer glowing with anticipation and the television schedules would be moved accordingly.

Witness For The Prosecution. Television Review. full post

(445 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Eye In The Sky, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Richard McCabe, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Monica Dolan, Iain Glen, Babou Ceesay, Phoebe Fox, Aaron Paul, Faisa Hassan, Aisha Takow, Armaan Haggio, Gavin Hood, Ebby Weyime, Lex King, Andrew Ahula, Ali Mohamed.

There are many reasons in which to take Eye In The Sky for a simple film about choice, its after effects and the consequences of decision; there are many reasons in which to understand that sometimes the greater good is served by the action of several bad and potentially evil people being taken out and one good person losing their life because of it; what it doesn’t prepare you for is the harrowing nature in which some decisions are formed.

Eye In The Sky, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

The Falling, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Maisie Williams, Maxine Peake, Florence Pugh, Anna Burett, Greta Scacchi, Rose Caton, Lauren McCrostie, Katie Ann Knight, Evie Hooten, Monica Dolan, Mathew Baynton, Morfydd Clark, Joe Cole.

The Falling is full of style, intrigue; a cast dominated by wonderful actresses and full of potential and yet, despite all this, leaves the cinema goer feeling flatter than an uncooked pancake sitting in a café, untouched, alone and as indigestible as a school meal in the 1970s.

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

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Andrew Scott, Dominic West, George Mackay, Paddy Considine, Joseph Gilgun, Faye Marsey, Freddie Fox, Ben Schnetzer, Jessie Cave, Liz White, Sophie Evans, Monica Dolan, Jessica Gunning, Chis Overton. Russell Tovey.

America can provide you with the blockbuster, Europe the art, India the beauty but when it comes to truth, justice, the gritty political outpouring, nobody does it better than the British film industry. Blockbusters are all well and good, the stimulation the senses, they blow the mind. Art and beauty is needed to wrap up the human emotion and give it meaning, realism is what brings it together, what makes the cinema goer believe in and restores a balance in a world that is too eager to make sure that division is seen everywhere.

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

(714 words, estimated 2:51 mins reading time)