Tag Archives: Simon Russell Beale

House Of The Dragon. Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith, Ewan Mitchell, Simon Russell Beale, Tom Glynn-Carney, Fabian Frankel, Steve Toussaint, Rhys Ifans, Sonya Mizuno, Matthew Needham, Jefferson Hall, kurt Egyiawan, Eve Best, Paddy Considine, Paul Kennedy, Phil Daniels, Harry Collett, Max Wrottesley, Bethany Antonia, Anthony Flanagan, Phia Saban, Phoebe Campbell, Nicholas Jones, Vincent Regan, Freddie Fox.

It’s never what was is in the presentation, it is always what is excluded that leaves the viewer, the expectant fan aghast at the omission of what could have been, and the counter narrative that suggests a different conclusion to those paid, employed to deliver the freedom of the story in the best way they see fit.

House Of The Dragon. Series Two. Television Review. full post

(505 words, estimated 2:01 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)

Mary, Queen Of Scots. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, David Tennant, Guy Pearce, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, Gemma Chan, Martin Compston, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Brendan Coyle, Ian Hart, Adrian Lester, James McArdle, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Eileen O’Higgins, Izuka Hoyle, Liah O’Prev, Alex Beckett, Simon Russell Beale, Richard Cant, Guy Rhys, Thom Petty, Aneurin Pascoe, Adrian Derrick-Palmer, Kal Sabir, Adam Bond, Like Kidd, Claire Brown, Alan Turkington, Jordan Turk, Adam Stevenson, Scot Greenan, Ed Jones, Alex Beckett, Ian Hallard, Andrew Rothney, Grace Molony, Georgia Burnell, Luke Hobson, Ben Wiggons, Eldredd, Wolf, Eric Macnaughton, Nathen East, Sean Buchanan.

Mary, Queen Of Scots. Film Review. full post

(598 words, estimated 2:24 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)

Death Of Stalin. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jason Isaacs, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurlenko, Steve Buscemi, Rupert Friend, Jeffrey Tambor, Paddy Considine, Richard Brake, Michael Palin, Simon Russell Beale, Paul Whitehouse, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Jonathan Aris, Adrian McLoughlin, Gerard Lepkowski, Dermot Crowley, Cara Horgan.

Politics is a game of wills, the necessity of horse trading played out on a global scale and one in which the sides change so quickly that any gains made one individual are soon scattered to the dusty footnotes of history. It is a game that when played well deserves its own satire, the weak and ineffective politicians get forgotten, the ones who scramble to the top have no other choice but to face the fact that even in death they will be satirised and parodied by the best of writers.

Death Of Stalin. Film Review. full post

(494 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

The Legend Of Tarzan. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Christoph Waltz, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, Sidney Ralitsoele, Osy Ikhile, Mens-Sana Tamakloe, Edward Apegyei, Antony Acheampong, Casper Crump, Adam Ganne, Simon Russell Beale, Djimon Hounsou, Miles Jupp, Jim Broadbent, Christopher Benjamin, Ben Chaplin.

It is arguably one of the most distinctive calls in the history of cinema, a simple cry of masculinity and dominance and yet one that is fuelled by the perversity of European culture making claims on the lives and heritage of Africa in the 19th and 20th Century. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan is rich in its story telling, if not in the very sentiment of abuse it was trying to dispel in his readers at the time.

The Legend Of Tarzan. Film Review. full post

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Johnny Depp, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, MacKenzie Mauzy, Billy Magnussen, Tammy Blanchard, Lucy Punch, Annette Crosbie, Joanna Riding, Frances de la Tour, Richard Glover, Simon Russell Beale.

 

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

(657 words, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

The Hollow Crown, Henry IV Part One. B.B.C. Television Review.

Originally published by L.S. Media. July 11th 2012

L.S. Media Rating ****

Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Julie Walters, Maxine Peake, Tom Georgeson, Simon Russell Beale, Alun Armstrong, Joe Armstrong, Harry Lloyd, Michelle Dockery, Robert Pugh.

If the first in the B.B.C.’s Hollow Crown adaptations of William Shakespeare’s history plays Richard II focused on the nature of chivalry in the time of noble kings, then the second, Henry IV, Part One focused on the story of what was too come. With an elderly Henry on the throne of England and with the playboy Prince of Wales taking up with thieves, robbers and undesirables in the taverns of Cheapside, it was more of an eye on how the boy, one of the best loved characters in Shakespeare and royal history, became the man he was to become.

The Hollow Crown, Henry IV Part One. B.B.C. Television Review. full post

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