Liverpool River of Light 2024 Photo post

 Some highlights from this year's River of Light festival, held in Liverpool each autumn.

TV Review - Agatha All Along Eps 7-9

 

Episode seven takes a further step beyond the initial premise to tell something of a time travel tale centred around Lilia. Her powers of premonition prove vital to solving the next trail which takes place inside a suitably gothic mansion. Agatha and Billy  - with temporal interjections from Lilia and Jennifer - have a limited time to complete  a game of tarot and there are literal swords hanging over their heads one of which drops each time there is an error. Presented with Lilia and Jennifer’s scenes popping back and forth incorporating flashbacks to previous episodes show how deeply plotted the show has been. We also see Lilia as a child learning the skills that will now help her win the game albeit at a cost.

Top of the Pops 12 October 1989

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

Gary Davies: “Hello. Good evening and welcome to Top of the Pops, we have a great show for you tonight. In the studio we have Cliff Richard, Sinitta, Belinda Carlisle, Living in a Box but first we start off with a guy who was last on Top of the Pops a year ago with On the Beach. Here's a new entry at twenty six with Road to Hell, here's Chris Rea.

 [26] CHRIS REA: the road to hell (part 2). Gary Davies gets the wrong caption. In fact, now I check, Steve Wright and Jakki Brambles also got the wrong format caption last week. Come on guys, a little consistency please. Or have the Powers That Be decided they hate the new-style target captions and gone back to the old-school asterisk ones? I hope they make up their mind soon because I keep spelling asterisk as asterix (damn you Goscinny and Uderzo) and I'll be glad to never mention this ***** topic again.

Meanwhile, Chris Rea is on the road to hell where I hear the paving is really nice. The album splits The Road to Hell into two tracks with a total running time around nine minutes, far too long for Top of the Pops. What we have here is Part 2, also released as a single, and shaved back from the single's running time of 4:35 to around three minutes. Part one, which is a study in atmosphere and synth groans and biblical lyrics, runs to another 4:52.

TV Review: The Rings of Power Season 2 Eps 7 & 8

 

Episode 7 Doomed to Die

 “True creation requires sacrifice” one of the characters in this episode says and this is something those extremely critical Tolkien lore fanatics might consider. An adaptation of a novel is always going to be a step away from the source being a different medium. What works on the page may not always translate literally on screen. In this case a dramatization of appendices surely needs additional material to turn notes into a story. Fans of anything are over possessive of course but reading some reviews of this show I feel as if I’ve been watching something different. At least viewers seem mostly aligned with this episode which even the haters have dubbed the best of the season. I’d say it’s the best episode of any tv show I’ve seen in some time.

 

Top of the Pops 5 October 1989

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

Steve Wright: “Hi!! Hello and good evening and welcome to another Top of the Pops!! This is Jakki Brambles!! I'm Steve Wright!!”

Jakki Brambles: “Okay we've got a brilliant show coming up for you. This is the second hit for Double Trouble and the Rebel MC. We are talking a wicked tune. A winning collaboration. This is Street Tuff.”

[12] REBEL MC DOUBLE TROUBLE: street tuff. The song which inspired one of the few bits of the Steve Wright in the Afternoon show that stick in my memory. “Is he a Yankee. No he's a pratt.” That was part of the jingle for Steve Wright's character Mr. Spoons. I have no idea what Mr. Spoons did but I'm sure he was wicked zany to the max.

TV Review- The Rings of Power Season 2 Eps 4 - 6

 

Episode Four - Eldest

This starts off on a whimsical note as the wandering Stranger comes across the legendary (to Tolkien readers at least) Tom Bombadil portrayed with a delightful lightness by Rory Kinnear. The actor is playing against type to some extent though there is some hint of  something steelier under the surface and in a lengthy sequence seems to reveal he is somewhat eternal. I don’t know much about his character except that Tolkien fans like him but that he’s been left out of any and all adaptations to date. He talks in a vague manner but seems to have great powers and by the end the Stranger is asking for help mastering his own gifts. If you’re wondering about the episode title it is something that Bombadil says when quizzed about his background. His reply is that he is literally the `eldest` and remembers a time even before there were stars. While its easy to see why his character was awkward to slot into previous versions there seems to be a place for him here, as a mentor to the stranger?

TV Review- Sweetpea

 

Billed as a dark comedy drama, Sweetpea certainly delivers on the former though not so much the latter. It is essentially about three women who for different reasons are frustrated at not being seen for who they are. Rhiannon is a quiet character who is ignored, taken for granted and generally not given her due. Julia is a successful estate agent hiding her abusive relationship under a glamorous confidence. Marina is a junior police officer who works hard but whose conclusions are routinely ignored by her boss. All three come into each other’s orbit when the local community is shocked by two savage murders. Only we, the viewers, know that Rhiannon is the killer – the tension of the series is whether or how this is discovered.

TV Review - Agatha All Along Eps 4- 6

 

The witchy spin off of a spin off continues to surprise...

Reviews contain spoilers