Tin Star: Liverpool, Sky Atlantic review - massed mayhem on Merseyside

★★★ TIN STAR: LIVERPOOL, SKY ATLANTIC Massed mayhem on Merseyside

It's high noon as Jack Worth and family come looking for vengeance

Breaking away from the outlandish shenanigans in Little Big Bear in the Canadian wilds of its first two series, this third outing for Tin Star brings Jack Worth (Tim Roth), wife Angela (Genevieve O’Reilly) and daughter Anna (Abigail Lawrie) back across the Atlantic to Liverpool to confront dirty secrets they’ve been running away from for 20 years.

Everything: The Real Thing Story, BBC Four review - brilliant but long overdue

★★★★★ EVERYTHING: THE REAL THING STORY, BBC FOUR The breakthrough Liverpudlian band's story told lovingly and not before time

The breakthrough Liverpudlian band's story told lovingly and not before time

This documentary is bittersweet viewing on quite a number of levels. First, it’s got all the glory and tragedy of the most compelling music stories: a Liverpool band struggling from humble beginnings, trying to find an identity, fraternity and fallings-out, coping with huge success and its aftermath – not to mention sex, drugs, mental illness and death.

Reissue CDs Weekly: King Size Taylor and the Dominoes

‘Dr. Feelgood’, the complete recordings of the Merseybeat legends, is a blast.

The enduring status of The Beatles shouldn’t distract from them having been one amongst many Liverpool bands while they found their feet. In October 1961, local impresario and Cavern Club DJ/MC Bob Wooler worked out that there were 125 active bands in Liverpool and its environs, and that he knew of 249 overall since he began working with music in the city.

Judy Collins, Grand Central Hall, Liverpool review - how sweet the sound, even at 80

★★★★★ JUDY COLLINS, LIVERPOOL How sweet the sound, even at 80

A consummate musician takes a trip down the foggy ruins of time

It’s a good few years since Judy Collins last toured Britain and Ireland, though in the US she’s rarely off the road. Over the last couple of years she has notched up more than 100 concerts (and an album) with Stephen Stills, who famously celebrated their 1960s love affair in the magnificent “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”. Her latest album, Winter Stories, with Jonas Field and Chatham County Line, had American critics reaching for superlatives and put her in the charts once more.

Morison, Williams, RLPO, Davis, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool review – a vision of near perfection

Chorus steals the show in a highly-charged performance of Duruflé's Requiem

It wasn’t really the orchestra’s night.  Nor the soloists'. Nor, even, the conductor's. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir totally stole the show, well surpassing the incredibly high standards which they already regularly attain and performing not as a large symphonic chorus but as a something akin to one of the highly specialist choirs with which this country is blessed.

The Virtues, Episode 4, Channel 4 review - a bitter redemption

★★★★ THE VIRTUES, EPISODE 4, CHANNEL 4 Gripping climax to Shane Meadows' harrowing series

Gripping climax to Shane Meadows' harrowing series

Shane Meadows has said that he always wanted to make a film where people didn’t talk. It’s homage to the European cinema he loves, with its preference for atmosphere over action, ambiguity over resolution, but it is also a way to confront an experience that lay dormant within his own life for too long. That is the trauma of the sexual abuse survivor, who is locked in silence and trapped by what cannot be said.

CD: Circa Waves - What It's Like Over There

Power pop with a good mix of yin and yang

Circa Waves, the guitar-band from Liverpool, go over a storm at festivals and large venues. With simplicity, tightness and concentrated energy, they know how to play with the tension that can build between soft and hard, the yin and the yang of rock forms that continue to sound fresh because they're delivered with a sense of fun and the joy of making party music with catchy lyrics.

Trpčeski, RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall review - one composer, many views

Brahmsfest brings a big spectacular from a dream team

It probably goes without saying that there will be "dream teams" in a football-mad city like Liverpool. What might be a little unusual is that this particular one has long been associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and has turned into one of the most potent marketing forces for the organisation for many a long year. It has nothing to do with the "beautiful game", though.