Tag Archives: Television review

Bates Motel: Series One. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Vera Farmiga, Freddie Highmore, Max Thieriot, Olivia Cooke, Nestor Carbonell, Nicola Peltz, Ian Hart, Kennan Tracey, Ian Tracey, Aliyah O’Brien, Mike Vogel, Jenna Romanin, Brittney Wilson, Jere Burns, Emmalyn Estrada, Matthew Matdzij.

How do you top a film that routinely makes the top 100 lists of all time, how do you bring one of cinema’s scariest villains into the conscious of the television viewer without taking apart what made him such a compelling antagonist in the first place; the only way such a character as Norman Bates can return to the mind of the audience is to take him back to the very beginning, to the point where nature and nurture explore the madness within his teenage soul.

Bates Motel: Series One. Television Review. full post

(440 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Damien. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Bradley James, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Omid Abtahi, Barbara Hershey, David Meunier, Robin Weigert, Melanie Scrofano, Viv Moore, Scott Wilson, Brody Bover, Michael Therriault, Daniel Kash, Madison Oldroyd, Juan Carlos Velis, Sandrine Holt, Joe Doyle, Bola Aiyeola, James Cade, Fulvio Cecere, Sara Garcia, Bess Armstrong.

We are forever vigilant it seems against the pulse of evil, its persuasion, its power in rhetoric and belief, that we forget how some can be swayed, seduced into following the path that others fear to tread, how the blinding light of what appears to be reasonable at face value, has the potential to turn humanity into baseless creatures of the night.

Damien. Television Series Review. full post

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

Upstart Crow. Series Three, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: David Mitchell, Liza Tarbuck, Paula Wilcox, Harry Enfield, Helen Monks, Gemma Whelen, Tim Downie, Rob Rouse, Mark Heap, Dominic Coleman, Steve Spiers, Spencer Jones, Jocelyn Jee Esien, Adrian Edmondson, Rosanna Beacock, Joe Willis, Beattie Edmondson, Brandon Fellows, Ben Miller, Peter Hamilton Dyer, Ken Nwosu, Nigel Planer.

If there is one thing an audience can count on with Ben Elton, aside from being involved in some of television’s most iconic comedies in the last thirty years, it is his unequalled ability to take a moment and turn it completely on its head and leave you with the feeling of being driven over the edge emotionally, of having the laughter pulled from underneath you and understanding that with great comedy must come empathy and grief in equal measure.

Upstart Crow. Series Three, Television Review. full post

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

Hamlet, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Andrew Scott, Jessica Brown Findlay, Angus Wright, Juliet Stevenson, David Rintoul, Barry Aird, Calum Finlay, Joshua Higgott, Elliot Barnes-Worrell, Marty Cruikshank, Amaka Okafor, Daniel Rabin, Luke Thompson, Peter Wright, Matthew Wynn.

There is always mileage in the heart of a universal play that means it never runs out of steam, it might falter and choke once in a while, it might be considered as bloated, overweight, have the wrong driver, be overwhelmed by passengers who contribute nothing to the aesthetics of the piece but on the whole it is one that often purrs along. The luxury on the outside replicated on the inside, the joy of seeing the production vehicle out on the road is a radiant sight and even when it is via the medium of television, the excitement and drama is one on which to celebrate.

Hamlet, Television Review. full post

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

Collateral, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Jeany Spark, Nicola Walker, John Simm, Nathaniel Martello-White, Ahd, Billie Piper, Kae Alexander, Hayley Squires, Judy Namir, Ben Miles, Orla Brady, Rob Jarvis, Mark Preston, George Georgiou, John Heffernan, Shawn Dixon, Lati Gbaja, Buppha Witt, Molly Simm, Nicola Duffett, Kim Medcalf, Vineeta Rishi, Siobhan McSweeney, Guy List, Richard McCabe, Tom Turner, Jacqueline Boatswain, Robert Portal, Alais Lawson, Brian Vernal, Deborah Findlay, Nick Mohammed, Tony Way, Alex Reid, Adrian Lukis.

Collateral, Television Review. full post

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

Paula, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Cast: Denise Gough, Tom Hughes, Owen McDonnell, Siobhan Cullen, Sean McGinley, Aoibhinn McGinnity, Jane Brennan, Emily Taaffe, Ameilia Metcalfe, Jonny Holden, Edward MacLiam, Ciarán McMenamin, Aislin McGuckin, David Herlihy, Rachael Dowling, Marty Maguire, Dylan Breen, Gary Liburn, David Pearse.

 

It is infuriating when a drama on television cannot decide if it is one thing or another, especially when in theory the premise of the story is not bad, a light entertainment by the small screen and one willing to find a way to bring a necessary point of view to the adult conversation. Yet in Paula, the makers of the programme managed to make a perfectly good idea somehow unpalatable, degrading and almost thrown straight into the bin where all other nonsense is kept.

Paula, Television Review. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Babs, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Samantha Spiro, Nick Moran, Leanne Best, Jamie Winstone, Luke Allen-Gale, Zoe Wanamaker, Robin Sebastian, Daniel Ben Zenou, Toby Wharton, Nicholas Asbury Jerry-Jane Peers, Alex Macqueen, Ross green, Rob Hughes, Tom Forbes, Joe Stilgoe, Julia Ford, Rob Compton, Charlie Archer, Honor Kneafsey, Jonathan Rhodes, Barbara Windsor.

 

Babs, Television Review. full post

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

Maigret’s Night At The Crossroads, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Rowan Atkinson, Lucy Cohu, Shaun Dingwall, Mark Heap, Aiden McArdle, Kevin McNally, Dorothy Atkinson, Ben Caplan, Paul Chahidi, Mia Jexen, Katherine Kanter, Jonathan Newth, Wanda Opalinska, Chook Sibtain, Leo Starr, Robin Weaver, Tom Wlaschiha, Stephen Wright, Max Wrottesley.

We all reach that decision sooner or later, we find ourselves perhaps tempted by the thought of a better life, of a world in which our care free abandon can run free riot and be held by the person that our dreams desire or we can keep going, being safe, being right and knowing full well the path we have chosen is not governed by avarice and jealousy, not by the path of the bullet.

Maigret’s Night At The Crossroads, Television Review. full post

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

Prime Suspect 1973, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Stefanie Martini, Sam Reid, Blake Harrison, Alun Armstrong, Andrew Brooke, Daniel Ezra, Jessica Gunning, Joshua Hill, Jordan Long, Tommy McDonnell, Ruth Sheen, Lex Shrapnel, Jay Taylor, Rosie Day, Clive De-Halton Gibson, Nicholas Sidi, Anthony Skordi, Geraldine Somerville, Nneka Okoye, Aaron Pierre, Nancy Caroll, Jacob James Beswick, Thomas Coombes, Dorian Lough.

Prime Suspect 1973, Television Review. full post

(456 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Taboo, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Tom Hardy, David Hayman, Jonathan Pryce, Oona Chaplin, Jessie Buckley, Stephen Graham, Richard Dixon, Leo Bill, Edward Hogg, Ruby May-Martinwood, Franka Potente, James Greaves, Michael Kelly, Jefferson Hall, Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Jason Watkins, Scroobius Pip, Nicholas Woodeson, Tom Hollander, Mark Gatiss, Christopher Fairbank, Lucian Msamati, Fiona Skinner, Marina Hands, Edward Fox.

Taboo, Television Review. full post

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