Tag Archives: Television review

The Moorside, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Sheridan Smith, Siobhan Finneran, Gemma Whelan, Sian Brooke, John Dagleish, Dean Andrews, Steve Oram, Gail Kemp, William Hunt, Cody Ryan, Sally Carr, Faye McKeever, Tom Hanson, Erin Shanagher, Darren Connolly, Cathy Breeze, David Zezulka, Charlotte Mills, David Peel, Kirsty Armstrong, Macy Shackleton, Martin Savage, Steve Garti, Rebecca Manley, Paul Opacic.

It was a crime that horrified Britain, a moment in the nation’s psyche that leaves a scar, not because of loss of life but one in which loss of self respect and hope became the headline news.

The Moorside, Television Review. full post

(541 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Apple Tree Yard, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Emily Watson, Ben Chaplin, Mark Bonnar, Susan Lynch, Olivia Vinall, Stephen Elder, Jack Hamilton, Syreeta Kumar, Assad Zaman, Kezia Burrows, Steffan Rhodri, Adeel Akhtar, Rhashan Stone, Lydia Leonard, Nick Sampson, Frances Tomelty, Laure Stockley, Sebastian Armesto, Denise Gough, Adrian Lukis.

The problem with putting on a drama on the television, no matter how well intentioned, is that in some respects the pace of the script feels disjointed, it can either be too fast and therefore lose the viewer’s attention by being overly complicated or too slow and then being the type of programme in which the person enduring the ongoing situation is forced to believe that many of the scenes or characters could have been cut or not bothered with at all.

Apple Tree Yard, Television Review. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

King Lear, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Don Warrington, Alfred Enoch, Mitos Yerolemou, Pepter Lunkuse, Rakie Ayola, Fraser Ayres, Norman Bowman, Thomas Coombes, Wil Johnson, Debbie Korley, Philip Whitchurch, Mark Springer, Rhys Bevan, Miles Mitchell, Sarah Quist, Sam Glen.

There are times when television isn’t brave enough to stand up to the dictum laid down by the B.B.C. at the beginning of its lengthy life span, to not only entertain and inform but also educate those willing to be edified in something other than endless reality programmes or the often insufferable endless round of celebrities plying their trade on panel games or news items. Yes it sticks the mission statement in many ways but the bravery is truly seen when it puts on its screens a captured live recording from a theatre of one of William Shakespeare’s more complex and lengthy plays.

King Lear, Television Review. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Rillington Place, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tim Roth, Samantha Morton, Nico Mirallegro, Jodie Comer, John-Paul Hurley, Christopher Hatherall, Tim Bentinck, Sonya Cassidy, Bryan Parry, Eiry Thomas, Chris Reilly, Pearl Appleby, Erin Armstrong, Kevin Mathurin, Sarah Quintrell.

There are some names that fall through history’s tentacles like poisoned water, the seeds of their crimes going undetected at the time and yet their title living on for all eternity, gruesome and disturbing, shocking and vile, there is no other way to describe the horror that was committed by John Reginald Christie at Rillington Place.

Rillington Place, Television Review. full post

(461 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Paranoid, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Robert Glenister, Indira Varma, Dino Fetscher, Neil Stuke, Christiane Paul, Lesley Sharp, Dominik Tiefenthaler, Michael Maloney, Anjli Mohindra, Kevin Doyle, Jonathan Ojinnaka, William Flanagan, John Duttine, William Ash, Daniel Drewes, Polly Walker, Richard Wheeldon, Jason Done, Danny Hutson.

When taking on a big television production, one with a tale that should be enormous and potentially gripping beyond anything else on television in a single year, it often helps the series realise its own levels of genius by not overpowering it with too many subplots and characters to whom the story would not miss one single iota. Some of the greatest mini-series ever have relied solely on the narrow focus, on the detail and not the illusion and it is unfortunately a piece of television advice forgotten largely in the creation of Paranoid.

Paranoid, Television Review. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Hancock’s Half Hour, The Lost Sitcoms. The New Neighbour, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kevin McNally, Katy Wix, Kevin Eldon, Robin Sebastian, John Culshaw, Robert Jack.

The beauty, pathos and reflection of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s writing can be seen fully in two of Britain’s greatest ever sitcoms, Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, both written with consideration and absolute wit, performed by comedic geniuses and with the knowledge that even after 60 years in the case of Hancock’s Half Hour, the words and situations are timeless, that no matter how much we move on in society, we still are products of the post Second World War generation.

Hancock’s Half Hour, The Lost Sitcoms. The New Neighbour, Television Review. full post

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

Marcella, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Anna Friel, Ray Panthaki, Nina Sosanya, Nicholas Pinnock, Charlie Covell, Sinéad Cusack, Jack Doolan, Harry Lloyd, Tobias Santelmann, Jamie Bamber, Patrick Baladi, Ben Cura, Ian Puleston-Davies, Emil Hostina, Susannah Wise, Imogen Fairies, Laura Carmichael, Stephen Lord, Yasen Atour, Jasmine Breinburg, Florence Pugh, Nick Hendrix, George Barnes, Andrew Lancel, Maeve Dermody.

The art of the Noir is to keep the viewer or reader guessing long enough that they doubt their own verdict, their own deductive reasoning and to question further their own possible prejudices of one suspect or another. It is an art fully utilised by the writers of the series Marcella and one that really got under the skin as each episode progressed.

Marcella, Television Review. full post

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

The Secret Agent, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Toby Jones, Charlie Hamblett, Vicky McClure, Marie Critchley, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Raphael Acloque, Stephen Graham, Ian Hart, Tom Goodman-Hill, David Dawson, Ash Hunter, George Costigan, Pennie Downie, Selina Boyack, Philip Rosch, Christopher Fairbank, Chris Ryman.

It can only be a good thing that television is prepared at times to look back through the innumerable amount of books and novels from before the second world war, the wealth of words wrapped up in long forgotten dust sheets and only admired by students of English literature. At times, it is good that television does this, for it reminds the multitude that there is such a thing as a story without sensationalism and the need for lust to be shown at every possible moment.

The Secret Agent, Television Review. full post

(485 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Dickensian, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tuppence Middleton, Stephen Rae, Sophie Rundle, Alexandra Moen, Joseph Quinn, Tom Weston-Jones, Pauline Collins, Robert Wilfort, Omid Djalili, Peter Firth, Jennifer Hennessy, Caroline Quentin, Richard Ridings, Anton Lesser, Laurel Jordan, Adrian Rawlins, Mark Stanley, Christopher Fairbank, Ned Dennehy, John Heffernan, Ben Starr, Brenock O’Connor, Bethany Muir, Phoebe Dynevor, Ellie Haddington, Richard Cordery, Wilson Radjou-Pujalte, Sam Hoare, Antonia Bernath.

To understand the present, you have to know what happened before, you have to know the story of how a person got to the position in life they inhabit on the day you met them, after that their life makes sense, it has significance.

Dickensian, Television Review. full post

(463 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

RWBY Volume 3, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech, Barbara Dunkelman, Miles Luna, Samantha Ireland, Jen Brown, Michael Jones, Kerry Shawcross, Taylor Pelto, Shannon McCormick, Kathleen Zuelch, Gray G. Haddock, Jessica Nirgi, Garrett Hunter, J.J. Castillo, Katie Newville.

Are Rooster Teeth the best production company for making animation or anything for that matter? Audiences are now at the end of RWBY volume three and it seems that Rooster Teeth really pour their hearts and souls into the work that they do.

RWBY Volume 3, Television Review. full post

(466 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)