Tag Archives: Samuel West

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)

The Midwich Cuckoos: Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Keeley Hawes, Max Beesley, Aisling Loftus, Ukweli Roach, Lara Rossi, Synnove Karlsen, Hannah Tointon, Rebekah Staton, Mark Dexter, Marianne Oldham, Lewis Reeves, India Amarteifio, Cherrelle Skeete, Amy Cuddon, Samuel West, Dexter Sol Ansell, Laura Doddington, Georgia Thorne, Jade Harrison, Scarlett Leigh, Erin Ainsworth, Billie Gadsdon, Evan Scott, Kaylen Luke, Natalia Harris, Aditi Pothuganti.

The world created by John Wyndham deserves the praise he achieved in his lifetime, and the respect he has posthumously garnered and maintained in the decades since his passing in 1969.

The Midwich Cuckoos: Television Drama Review. full post

(687 words, estimated 2:45 mins reading time)

The Diary Of River Song: I Went To A Marvellous Party. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alex Kingston, Alexander Vlahos, Alexander Siddig, Imogen Stubbs, John Voce, Letty Butler, Samuel West, John Banks, Aaron Neil.

Murder has to be inventive to keep the interest of those who delight in such anarchy, however, the reasons for murder have become entangled in reasons to which have become ever murkier, more salient, less transparent as they have ever been. It is no longer enough to kill a character on the basis of greed, gain or for the love of someone, now there must be complexity, there must be retribution for the act in which the victim surely deserves to die. It is in this realm of vengeance that the merest sleight becomes weaponised, the act of ecocide is met with the fullest support of death to the perpetrator by all concerned. It is no longer enough to see someone brought to justice, tried by a jury, now there must be blood.

The Diary Of River Song: I Went To A Marvellous Party. Audio Drama Review. full post

(528 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

On Chesil Beach, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Billy Howle, Emily Watson, Samuel West, Anne-Marie Duff, Adrian Scarborough, Rasmus Hardiker, Bebe Cave, Jonjo O’Neill.

Time and sensitivity are not natural bed fellows, neither is truly mature enough to handle each other’s whims, demands or spoilt child like behaviour when the going gets tough; it takes a writer of delicate persuasion in which to capture the beauty in heartache and the sudden fall of a relationship which had been so clear before.

On Chesil Beach, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(437 words, estimated 1:45 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)

Darkest Hour. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily James, Ronald Pickup, Stephen Dillane, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West, David Schofield, Richard Lumsden, Malcolm Storry, Hilton McRae, Benjamin Whitrow, Joe Armstrong, Adrian Rawlins, David Bamber, Paul Leonard, David Strathairn, Eric MacLennan, Philip Martin Brown, Jordan Waller, Alex Clatworthy, Anna Burnett, Jeremy Child, Brian Pettifer, Michael Gould, Pip Torrens.

Few men in history can go through life without causing waves, without being the conversation of being somehow divisive, hated perhaps in equal measure as they are loved; it is the symbol perhaps of just how much drive a person can have in life, a thirst for adventure that makes them the figures they are.

Darkest Hour. Film Review. full post

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Grace Stotter, Adrian Schiller, Natalie Press, Geoff Bell, Amanda Lawrence, Romola Garai, Finbar Lynch, Samuel West, Clive Wood, Annabelle Dowler, Simon Gifford.

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

(477 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell, Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Bertie Carvel, Eddie Marsan, Marc Warren, Charlotte Riley, Alice Englert, Samuel West, Enzo Cilenti, Paul Kaye, Edward Hogg, Brian Pettifer, Ariyon Bakare, Vincent Franklin, John Heffernan, Richard Durden, Robbie O’ Neil, John Sessions, Clive Mantle, Lucinda Dryzek, Ronan Vibart.

 

For all the other channels and subscriber based ways of watching television, for all the smoke and mirrors of television programmes being played out endlessly and arguably without diligence and care for the viewers intelligence, when the B.B.C. gets something completely right it normally becomes the best thing to have been seen in the comfort of your armchair all year and in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell such worthy praise and lofted heights is needed.

Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell, Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(564 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

The Eichmann Show, Television Review.

Cast: Martin Freeman, Anthony LaPaglia, Vaidotas Martinaitis, Samuel West, Nicholas Woodeson, Rebecca Front, Andy Nyman, Ben Addis, Caroline Bartlett, Ed Birch, Zora Bishop, Dylan Edwards, Nathaniel Gleed, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Soloman Mousley, Anna-Louise Plowman, Ian Porter, Justin Salinger,

There are moments in history that have damned us as a species. No century, no civilisation, not one era is innocent of spilling bloodshed, but nothing perhaps can touch the 20th Century for the sheer desecration of humanity and the blood of so many children.

The Eichmann Show, Television Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: The Mask Of Tragedy. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Philip Olivier, Samuel West, Alisdair Simpson, Russell Bentley, Tim Treloar, Emily Tucker.

Heroes, true heroes, those that seek no recompense for their actions in saving someone’s life and see no honour in reminding others what they have done for them in the past are so rare, so infrequent; that it is hardly surprising that tales of epic valour seems to be steeped in antiquity and legend. For those in ancient Greece, tales of heroes were what gave the collection of disparate nations and its people hope in times of war, pestilence and the invention of Greek comedy and one of its Godfathers, Aristophanes.

Doctor Who: The Mask Of Tragedy. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(508 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)