Wednesday 30 November 2011

THE RETURN OF MR JACOB MARLEY (DECEASED) !


As some of may recall, last year I reviewed a rather wonderful stage production of Charles Dickens' Yuletide classic. Entitled A Christmas Carol As Told By Jacob Marley (Deceased), this was a one man show produced by James Hyland, in which under the guise of English Literature's most famous and festive spectre, he performs the entire tale of his old business partner Scrooge. It was a wonderful production, steeped in the magic of Dickens, infused with the essence of pure theatre, and a marvellous night out for the dark days before Christmas to boot. And so I'm truly delighted  to announced that this December, Messers Hyland and Marley are back on the road, and indeed treading the boards again! 

And so if the revenant of Mr Marley is resurrecting and manifesting somewhere near you, I thoroughly recommend the trip to your local theatre and catching this particular Christmas spirit! 




TOUR DATES
DEC 3 @ 7.30pm
CORSHAM - POUND ARTS CENTRE
The Pound, Pound Pill, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9HX
01249 701 628 www.poundarts.org.uk

DEC 7 @ 7pm
ABERTILLERY - THE MET
Mitre Street, Abertillery, Blaenau Gwent, NP13 1AL
01495 322 510 www.the-met.co.uk

DEC 8 @ 7.30pm
CARMARTHEN - LYRIC THEATRE
King Street, Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, SA31 1BD

DEC 9 @ 7.30pm
MONMOUTH - BLAKE THEATRE
Almshouse Street, Monmouth, NP25 3XP

DEC 10 @ 7.30pm (Includes post-show talk)
EASTBOURNE - UNDERGROUND THEATRE
Arts Centre, East Sussex, Eastbourne, BN21 4TL

DEC 12 @ 2pm & 7.15pm
CANTERBURY - GULBENKIAN THEATRE
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NB

DEC 13 @ 7.45pm
SCARBOROUGH - STEPHEN JOSEPH THEATRE
Westborough, Scarborough, YO11 1JW
01723 370 541 www.sjt.uk.com

DEC 14 @ 7.30pm
HEXHAM - QUEEN'S HALL ARTS CENTRE
Beaumont Street, Hexham, Northumberland, NE46 3LS
01434 652 477 www.queenshall.co.uk

DEC 15 @ 7.30pm
RUNCORN - THE BRINDLEY
High Street, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 1BG
0151 907 8360 www.thebrindley.org.uk

DEC 16 @ 8pm
HEMEL HEMPSTEAD - THE OLD TOWN HALL THEATRE
High Street, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP1 3AE
01442 228 091 www.oldtownhall.co.uk

DEC 20 @ 8pm
DEC 21 @ 8pm
CHELMSFORD - CRAMPHORN THEATRE
Fairfield Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 1JG

DEC 22 @ 7.30pm
LONDON – ARTSDEPOT
5 Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, London, N12 0GA
0208 369 5454 www.artsdepot.co.uk

DEC 23 @ 2pm & 7.30pm
DEC 24 @ 2pm
STAFFORD - GATEHOUSE THEATRE
Eastgate Street, Stafford, ST16 2LT

DEC 28 @ 7.30pm
BARNSLEY - THE CIVIC
Hanson Street, Barnsley, S70 2HZ

DEC 29 @ 7pm
BROMSGROVE – ARTRIX
Slideslow Drive, Bromsgrove, B60 1PQ
01527 577 330 www.artrix.co.uk

Website:
Please go to www.jameshyland.co.uk/achristmascarol for more information on the production.





Sunday 27 November 2011

HYPNOBOBS 57 - Twice The Price!


Due to various factors, this week Mr Jim Moon hands over the reins to a guest host, and so we have Mr Vincent Price presenting two tales illustrating The Price of Fear!  In the first he co-stars with fellow horror legend Mr Peter Cushing, and in the second finds himself in a tale penned by Count Dracula's biographer Bram Stoker!


DIRECT DOWNLOAD Twice The Price!

Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here -

HYPNOGORIA HOME DOMAIN - Full archive, RSS feed and other useful links

HYPNOGORIA on iTunes


Friday 25 November 2011

It's the Stars Again...


It's Friday and that can only mean that once again it's time for your staaaaaaaaaaars for the week! On esmall step for man, one giant leap for idiotkind!




Thursday 24 November 2011

UMBRAGE - THE FIRST VAMPIRE



Another day and another vampire flick! But this low budget production is one with a difference... The unintentional pun 'bloody strange' immediately spring to mind...





Wednesday 23 November 2011

IT WAS 48 YEARS AGO TODAY...


...that the Doctor invited Ian and Barbara to play!

Yes nearly half a century ago, on 23rd of November 1963, viewers of British television witnessed a pair of school teachers following one of their pupils home to a junkyard in Totters Lane where a mysterious policebox stood... That story was An Unearthly Child, the very first episode of Doctor Who, and the rest is, as they say, history!

And to celebrate I'm representing a series of articles detailing the many lives and faces of the Doctor...














“Does Paul McGann count? Sod that! The real question is does Richard E Grant?”



Tuesday 22 November 2011

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3 - WORLD EXCLUSIVE!

Thanks to a dodgy fellow of my acquaintance and a USB stick, I've managed to get my hands on what appears to be a rough cut of a teaser for Tom Six's next magnum opus, The Human Centipede Part 3! And although there's no actual footage of the in-progress production, you can tell the shocking direction Six is taking his sick vision in next!




Unbelievable I know! Enjoy this quickly before the lawyers and the BBFC demand it's removed!


Sunday 20 November 2011

STUPID QUESTIONS DEPT. - Scifi Seasons on the Beeb in the '70s

Welcome to the Stupid Questions Department! Deep in the Mad Labs of Mr Moon's mind, where tantalising fragments of memories bubble in test tubes, half baked factoids are heated over bunsen burners and the benches are all stained from lysergic chromatography!

In other words, I have a question for you all... But fear not! It's not (I hope) one of those insolvable conundrums that have plagued the minds of men for centuries like 'What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow'  but something that some one with better and less booze soaked memory than mine may have the answer to!

Come back in Time with to me to the mid 1970s, a time when men were real men despite wearing eye-shadow and glitter, when women were real women as many lad watching Pan's People on Top of the Pops discovered, and where jobbing session musicians could earn a lucrative crust by dressing up as Wombles!

Anyhow back in those distant golden days where everything was made of Spangles and twelve inch flares, and all childhoods were enchanted by Oliver Postgate, the good old Auntie Beeb scheduled a season of classic scifi movies. They were shown early evening, mid week on BBC 1 and there was even a trailer advertising this selection of interplanetary classics. 

Now to don my deerstalker hat for a moment, I suspect this may have been around the release of Star Wars (1976 or 77). However given the huge popularity of the genre in that decade, which saw a host of small screen scifi classics - Survivors, Blakes 7, The Changes, Doomwatch, TimeslipThe Tomorrow People to name but a few, and of course Doctor Who in it's heyday - it's entirely possibly this season of space flicks occurred well before George Lucas persuaded the world that 'droid' was a better word than 'robot'.


Needless to say this series of movies was an absolute delight to me and was where I saw many classics for the very first time. However my question is what movies were actually shown as part of this season? Now I am pretty much certain that they showed the George Pal version of The Time Machine (1960) (I'll never forget the nightmares inspired by the Morlocks or trying to persuade my Dad to let build a Time Machine in the garage)  and When Worlds Collide (1951). And I'm fairly sure they showed Forbidden Planet (1956) too.

However I'm hazy on the rest. Other possible flicks they screened are This Island Earth (1955), Journey To The Center To The Earth (1959)  and maybe even a TV première of Silent Running (1972). I'm fairly sure they only stuck to colour movies which rules out the likes of The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) and The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961), and being prime-time family friendly BBC 1 they would have avoided anything potentially scary like Them! (1954), The Thing From Another World (1951) or the Hammer Quatermass adaptations.

So can any of you out there shed any light on this matter? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Surely some one has to remember! After all there's plenty of folk who fondly recall the late horror double bills from the Beeb in the same period and are even campaigning to bring them back! So surely, there must a listing for this scifi season somewhere! And surely, these screenings of classic science fiction can't just have enriched my childhood!

Right, I'll stop calling you 'Shirley' now...

But the reason I'm asking, other than to scratch a mental itch, is this. The other week the boys from The Black Dog were covering Forbidden Planet, and while watching this marvellous movie I was chit-chatting on Twitter about it. And I had the idea that it would be fun to revisit all the movies shown in this dimly remembered BBC1 season for an episode (or two) of HYPNOBOBS... So there's your motivation folks!

And if you have an answer, do get in touch via ouija board, carrier raven, telepathic transmission etc. Or just use the comment box below... Otherwise I'll just have to work my way through all the titles mentioned in this! Sing lips!



Go on sing  along, you know you want to!

Saturday 19 November 2011

HYPNOBOBS 56 - The Blue Cross


Once more we're back at the fireside of the Great Library of Dreams, but this time Mr Jim Moon has something a little different for you all... A classic mystery tale of crime and detection from the very wonderful GK Chesterton.


DIRECT DOWNLOADThe Blue Cross

Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here -

HYPNOGORIA HOME DOMAIN - Full archive, RSS feed and other useful links

HYPNOGORIA on iTunes

Sunday 13 November 2011

HYPNOBOBS 55 - The Natural History of the Batman Part 5


Mr Jim Moon continues his epic exploration of Bat-history! This time discovering what lay in store for the Batman in the latter half of the 1970s. Warning - may contain Bat-Mite!


DIRECT DOWNLOADThe Natural History of the Batman Part 5

Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here -

HYPNOGORIA HOME DOMAIN - Full archive, RSS feed and other useful links

HYPNOGORIA on iTunes

Friday 11 November 2011

Now then, now then, it's the stars!


It's that time of the week again! Yes, the Mystic Ones are back with your staaaaaaaaaars for the week!


(Incidentally you can hear the full trance-tastic version of the end tune here)

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Stake Land (2011)



Ah, another vampire flick eh? Do we really need more bloodsuckers on screen?

Find out in my review over on GeekPlanetOnline!



GREAT BRITISH GHOSTS



Now as all my regular readers and listeners will know, I adore all things ghostly, whether in fact or in fiction. And while I was putting together my Ghostwatch special for Hypnobobs, as some background research I started channel hopping to check out the state of play of the sort of paranormal reality television pioneered by Most Haunted. However that aforementioned spook hunting show is currently off air, in between switching host channels it would appear, but I did stumble on a brand new series on Yesterday, a free to air history channel, which instantly won a place in my heart.

Entitled Great British Ghosts, this little programme does exactly what it says on the tin. In each half hour episode, we visit two different haunted locations somewhere in this green and pleasant land. However this isn't another exercise in televisual ghost hunting, completely free from all that running about in night vision and shrieking at shadows. Instead, with the always charming Micheala Strachan as our host and guide, we learn the history of the places, tour the locales, hear local experts recount the ghostly legends associated with it and round it off with with modern day sightings from the folk who dwell there and the indigenous paranormal experts. 

And so we get to virtually visit a range of fascinating places from the comfort of our armchairs; naturally we have the expected selection of spectre-filled castles and stately homes, but also haunted pubs, coaching inns and villages. And there's also some rather unusual locations too, a recent episode featured Rochester House, a manor house built by a Freemason that was never actually finished or inhabited, and in another a formerly top secret nuclear shelter. 

Now part of the show's charm is undoubtedly getting to have look around some fabulous places in the British Isles and learning a little of their histories along the way. But although you could say the locations themselves are the stars of the series, often they are complimented, and indeed often outshone, by some of the locals. Chatting with Michaela, the assorted historians, tour guides and experts frequently prove themselves to be excellent storytellers, spinning out the tales of the resident spooks and ghouls with great gusto. And rightly so, as this sceptred isle is, after all, as well known for its colourful local characters as it's   wealth of historic buildings and monuments. 

And it's this appealing cocktail of local history and storytelling that makes this show such a spooky treat for the long winter evenings. For unlike a lot of paranormal television, Great British Ghosts isn't trying to pass itself off as a serious investigation, and while we do hear the findings of local ghost hunters and often get some video footage or photographs to ponder, the show isn't really trying to tax your beliefs. How much you choose to believe is entirely up to you, and instead the show is simply celebrating Britain's spectral heritage, delighting in the pleasure of spinning ghost stories, whether they are folkloric accounts of headless horsemen and family curses or recent reports of weird goings-on. 

Great British Ghosts is a winning combination of beautiful and fascinating locations, a taste of local colour, a soupçon of history and of course, plenty of spooks. This is very gentle television, perfect for the long dark evenings by the fire, and which I highly recommend to all lovers of all things spectral everywhere. However that said, the assorted accounts are bound to raise a delicious shivers or two as only a good ghost story can...

Great British Ghosts is showing on Friday nights at 9 PM on Yesterday (FREEVIEW 12, VIRGIN MEDIA 203, SKY 537)

Great British Ghosts home page

Yesterday channel home page



Tuesday 8 November 2011

CAMP HELL (2011)



A movie that has languished on studio shelves for a few years finally gets a release... But what is Camp Hell? Is it a slasher film? A demonic possession movie? A Christian horror flick maybe?

Find out over at GeekPlanetOnline, where I don my official horror correspondent hat, and unroll my sleeping bag for a stay at Camp Hell!


Sunday 6 November 2011

HYPNOBOBS 54 - The Whistling Room


As autumn shades into winter, it's time to draw close by the fireside once more and for Mr Jim Moon to open up again the Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder...


DIRECT DOWNLOADThe Whistling Room

Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here -

HYPNOGORIA HOME DOMAIN - Full archive, RSS feed and other useful links

HYPNOGORIA on iTunes


Friday 4 November 2011

Your Stars For the Week!



Yes, the Mystic Ones are back with their usual drivel and inappropriate uses of childhood favourites...