REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2021
Emily Barker - The Woman Who Planted Trees
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
- EMILY BARKER - A Dark Murmuration of Words | Emily Barker - Bandcamp
- - EMILY BARKER: 'Flight Path Rhymes' - NEW META ALBUM!
- STEPHEN FRETWELL - Busy Guy
- NAT MYERS! - 'Hobo Wine & Remedy Blues'
- MARTHA WAINWRIGHT - Love Will Be Reborn
- AMY MACDONALD 'The Human Demands'
- WILLIE WATSON - 'Folk Singer no 2'
- BELLOWHEAD 'Reassembled'.
- RADIOHEAD - KID A MNESIA
- JOHNNY FLYNN 'Lost in The Ceddar Wood' (with Robert MacFarlane)
- THEA GILMORE - 'AFTERLIGHT' & 'The EMANCIPATION OF EVA GREY'
- KATHRYN WILLIAMS/CAROL ANN DUFFY - 'MIDNIGHT CHORUS'
Nat Myers - Willow Witchin Woman
Kathryn Williams - Midnight Chorus
BEST SINGLES:
- NAT MYERS "WILLOW WITCHIN'!"
- WET LEG - Chaise Long
- - WET LEG SINGLE NO 2 'WET DREAM'
- ANDREW BIRD "SOUVENIRS" [BY JOHN PRINE]
- RADIOHEAD - IF YOU SAY THE WORD
- BELLOWHEAD - NEW YORK GIRLS - ROLL ALABAMA ROLL!
- JOSIE PROTO - I JUST WANNA WALK HOME
- AMY MACDONALD - 'SPARK'
- EMILY BARKER (FEAT. FRANK TURNER) BOUND FOR HOME
- LINDA ORTEGA - RUN DOWN NEIGHBOURHOOD!
BEST NEW BAND/ARTIST:
NAT MYERS
WET LEG
ELLI DE MON - COUNTIN THE BLUES
AYNSLEY LISTER
(MS LAUREN SPEAR) LE REN
RADIOHEAD - IF YOU SAY THE WORD (Best VIDEO CONTENDER)
PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR - ROUTE
BOOKS:
KATHRYN WILLIAMS' debut novel - 'The Ormering Tide'
THE CHAMELEON POET by John Bauldie
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Lin Yung Cheng - art photography
Sand Mooney Else - photography online blog
Those we have lost:
NANCI GRIFFITH - folk singer songwriter
JON HASSELL - musican
HELEN MCCRORY - actor
MICHAEL NESMITH- singer songwriter
SEAN LOCK - comedian
LOU OTTENS, creator of the cassette tape
U ROY - Dub master and toaster
DON EVERLY- singer songwriter
CHARLIE WATTS - Drummer and 'band leader'
“LEE SCRATCH” PERRY - musician producer
CHRIS BARBER - musican
BUNNY WAILER - musician
MONTE HELLMAN - director
FRED DELLAR - writer
DUSTY HILL DEAD- guitarist
CHUCK CLOSE painter/artist
MICHAEL CHAPMAN - musician guitarist songwriter
PADDY MOLONEY - musician band leader
PAT FISH OF JAZZ BUTCHER (64)
PAUL RITTER - actor
ROB REINER - Maverick genius film director
DEAN STOCKWELL - actor
TERRENCE 'ASTRO' WILSON - singer
ROBBIE SHAKESPEARE -bassman and producer
MICK ROCK - art rock photographer
STEPHEN SONDHEIM - musical genius
JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO - actor
MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS - actor
TOM T HALL -C&W singer songwriter
UNA STUBBS -actor
B.J. THOMAS - musician
LLOYD PRICE - musician
YAPHET KOTTO -actor
GEORGE SEGAL - actor
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI -poet legend and owner of City Lights bookstore and publisher
PHIL SPECTOR - maverick music producer
TV PROGRAMME/SERIES OF THE YEAR
Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton (played by a mesmerising Martin Clunes here showing he can do really serious!) is tasked with reviewing Operation Minstead, an eleven-year, multi-million-pound enquiry to catch the 'Night Stalker'.After the first series looked at the true life killing of Amélie Delagrange and implicates him in the murder of Milly Dowler by Levi Bellfield Sutton is tasked to catch up a cold case of the so called Night Stalker ( Delroy Grant) which I had just watched a real crime profile of the case so it was timely and made a truly horrific criminal case edge of the seat watchable with a back up cast including the brilliant Claudie Blakley. I found Martin here little short of sheer brilliance.
FROM THE VAULTS WITH GUY GARVEY - brilliant archive footage from the television vaults from district tele to obscure second takes in pop programmes Guy Garvey gave the voice over to a brilliant series of videos
STONEHENGE - BBC The Lost Circle Revealed
TV films and series:
Together
(BBC Two) Written by Dennis Kelly, directed by Stephen Daldry and starring James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan, this Covid two-hander certainly didn’t want for talent. A couple are, like the rest of the country, stuck inside together. And, like the rest of the country, they’ve started to hate each other. The real anger, though, is reserved for the government. As such, especially for those who lost a loved one in the first flush of Coronavirus, it was a staggeringly hard watch.
Starstruck
(BBC One) In New Zealand comic Rose Matafeo’s lovable romcom, her character Jessie is having a strange old time living in London, with a titchy flat, tedious jobs – and the fact that she can’t stop bumping into a movie star named Tom Kapoor (Nikesh Patel) that she had a one night stand with.
Motherland
(BBC Two) By its third series, you pretty much know where a sitcom will go. That’s true of Motherland, which barely attempted to deviate from its formula of middle-class mums being horrible to each other. But why bother when the blueprint is so good?
Ghosts
(BBC One) The best all-round British sitcom in years, Ghosts’ third series mined slightly more heartfelt territory than before. Not only were the phantoms fleshed out more fully, but the frankly wonderful Charlotte Ritchie’s Alison found herself yearning for a family that couldn’t quite manifest itself. As beautiful as it was funny.
The Cleaner
(BBC One) Greg Davies adapted and starred in this adaptation of the German series Der Tatortreiniger, about a man tasked with removing crime scene evidence from the homes of several guest stars. It might not be the most original premise, but when The Cleaner worked, it really worked.
Alma’s Not Normal
(BBC Two) Sophie Willan’s autobiographical show about the childhood she describes as being “the baby in Trainspotting, if she’d lived” won a comedy Bafta for the pilot alone. So this six-episode series, which saw her move from a job in a sandwich shop to becoming a sex worker and finally joining a theatre troupe, was an absolute riotous delight.
Help
(Channel 4) Another one-off Covid drama, Help starred Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham as a care home worker and resident respectively. Jack Thorne’s script surged with rage at the indifference with which the care sector was left to rot as the first wave of the pandemic rolled in. There’s plenty of warmth, but you’re never allowed to forget who the villains are.
Stephen Fretwell - The Long Water (Busy Guy album)
Guilt
(BBC Scotland/iPlayer) The first series of Neil Forsyth’s crime thriller was a word-of-mouth hit, largely thanks to Mark Bonnar’s psychotic growl of a performance. This year’s second series lost a little of its pace, but was still as compelling as ever. Let’s all cross our fingers for a third series.
Inside No 9
(BBC Two) By now you could be forgiven for taking Inside No 9 for granted. But this year, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton managed to find even greater heights. There was a Brexit episode, an episode about the uneasy relationship between fans and creators, an episode where Sian Clifford played against type twice at once. The invention here continues to be phenomenal.
This Way Up
(Channel 4) Like Back to Life, the second series of Aisling Bea’s This Way Up improved on its first. This time, as well as focusing on the recovery of Bea’s character Aine, the show was also bold enough to tackle Covid as a storyline. The fact that it was almost entirely alone in making the subject work with this little distance makes it doubly worthy of praise.
Unforgotten
(ITV) A dusty old survivor like this ITV detective show always runs the risk of becoming set in its ways. Not so with Unforgotten, which this year said goodbye to its star the constantly reliable Nicola Walker. It’s bittersweet: she was perfect in this role, but now she’s freed up to become an Olivia Colman-style megastar.
Le Ren - May Hard Times Pass Us By
Vigil
(BBC One) How to create one of the most nail-biting televisual experiences of the year? Take a tense, twisty procedural plot, get Suranne Jones to fire on all cylinders as a trauma-racked action hero badass, then cram her into a ready-made environment for a claustrophobic whodunnit: a nuclear sub.
Time
(BBC One) Jimmy McGovern’s hard, horrifying look at prison life was seen largely through the eyes of former teacher Mark Cobden (Sean Bean), who was serving his first stretch. Bean’s performance was a masterclass in understatement, communicated mainly through silence and shuffles on the wing – and it made for even more devastating television.
Line of Duty
(BBC One) Now overshadowed by its finale, dismissed as anticlimactic by viewers and aggressively defended at length by Jed Mercurio, Line of Duty’s sixth series was just as tight and knotty as ever. And it absolutely pummelled everything else on television to pieces. Sixteen million people watched its final episode in May. In 2021, that’s incredible.
Disappointments that I don’t have Netflix or Sky, HBO, Apple TV or Amazon Prime TV
Get Back (Disney+)
WandaVision,
Squidgame,
Mare of Easttown,
Josie Proto - I just wanna walk home
RADIO
FILM OF THE YEAR: ON TELEVISION
Things that have kept us sane during lockdown
Kate Rusby - Singy Songy Sessions
well they spanned 2020 really but did finish in Spring of 2021 (March) so it still figures and all the posts from such folk did much to keep our sprits up
Ricky Gervais - Daily check ins from Facebook
The Self Isolating Bird Club - Chris Packham and step daughter Megan 'Beast' McGubbin
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8IZMOohZNxP5thvS9sMqVy8cq8NX3Mou
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