Category: Movies

Keira Knightley is a British actress. Knightley began acting as a child on television and made her feature film debut in 1995, before making her breakthrough with the 2002 sports film Bend it like Beckham. She gained wider recognition for playing Elizabeth Swann in the 2003 fantasy swashbuckler film Pirates of the Caribbean, a role […]

Judy Dyble was an English singer-songwriter. Her first band was Judy and The Folkmen (which existed between 1964 and 1966). They made homemade demo recordings, none of which were released, but some are included on a mooted anthology of Dyble’s career, (but the release was cancelled when Sanctuary was taken over by Universal.) She then […]

My discovery of Emily Barker and her music was somewhat labyrinthine. Having developed an interest in Nordic Noire via such series as Borgen, The Bridge and Dicte. I found myself enjoying the Wallander series. When this series was remiade in English with Kenneth Branagh in the title role it was enevitable that I would watch […]

Arlo Guthrie is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing protest songs against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father Woody Guthrie. He appeared at Woodstock and ‘Coming Into Los Angeles’ was one of the numbers in his set. Guthrie’s best-known work is his debut piece, “Alice’s […]

Habanera (music or dance of Havana, Spanish: La Habana) is the popular name for “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (“Love is a rebellious bird”). It is an aria from Goerges Bizet’s opera comique, first performed in 1875. This piece marks the entrance of the title character, in scene 5 of the first act. It is […]

Our Shining Hope is a 2017 Chinese coming of age musical film set in a fictitious music school, the students of Chinese and Classical music don’t get along with each other. They call each other “tacky” and “pretentious“. Chen Jing, a quirky but talented student, initially doesn’t care about the rivalry, until she falls for […]

In the mid 1980’s, there appeared on television a series of programmes describing the mis-adventures of Trevor Chaplin (itinerant Geordie woodworker) and Jill Swinburne (English teacher and conservationist) all loosely tied together by the music of Bix Beiderbecke (the first white jazz cornet player – his music it is said ‘sounded like bullets shot from […]

For the weekend I thought that it would be fun to watch these three excellent performers – Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Blunt and James Corden as they try to fit excerpts from 22 musicals into the space of 12 minutes. It is a joyful experience and full of amazing green screen work. It was performed just […]

Friday has traditionally been my day off, but now that I have retired – it stil is! And therefore I like to have some fun with my music. So today we travel back to October 1939 to the release of the Marx Brothers movie ‘At The Circus’ and a classic performance of Lydia the Tattooed […]