AD | National Open Youth Orchestra – Ring Out! Review

Note: I received a complimentary ticket for this concert, but all opinions are my own.

Music is an incredibly powerful, immersive and varied medium that impacts us all in one way or another, irrespective of who we are. It’s certainly been a constant feature in my life, as I’ve always enjoyed listening to it, and when I was a kid I used to play it a bit as well, just for fun. Being unable to read sheet music didn’t matter, as I could memorise things with practice, and I enjoyed improvising too. I still think it would be cool to learn an instrument like the guitar or piano one day, if I had the time, patience and guidance.

So I know first-hand that being able to play and/or compose music is a great form of escapism that allows you to express yourself and be creative. But for many disabled people, it’s not only enjoyable and rewarding, it can be truly vital. It can enable them to communicate clearly, reveal their personality, share their ideas, demonstrate their talents, feel safe, increase their confidence and form connections with other people, in ways that would otherwise be difficult or impossible. Music is the magic key that can unlock so much.

Of course, that can be easier said than done, if there are instruments that are inaccessible, or if you can’t find other people to share things with and learn from. So it’s always nice to learn of ways that disabled people have been given the opportunity to fully engage with music, especially at a young age so they can carry it with them throughout their lives. And I had the privilege of seeing one such group perform last weekend.

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I Want Some More! – Oliver! Review

As I’ve said in the past, I love the 1968 musical film adaptation of the Dickens novel Oliver Twist, with all its wonderful songs, characters, sets and costumes, all brought to life by a brilliant cast. It was based on Lionel Bart’s theatre show of course, of which there have been several productions since it launched in 1960, and while I have the soundtrack albums for some of them, I’ve never had a chance to see the musical live, until now.

That’s because I recently went to the Gielgud Theatre to see an audio described performance of the current production of Oliver! by Cameron Mackintosh, which launched last year. And on reviewing the situation (for this post that isn’t sponsored), I think it can consider itself well in, because it’s a fine life for those who will buy a ticket to see it.

The Gielgud Theatre, a four-story building with ornate decor that stands proudly on a street corner, with signage for the Oliver musical. The centre of the building, which curves around the corner, has an extra room with a domed roof on the very top.
Poster for Oliver, showing a painted image of a young boy's face, with the London skyline in the background, including St Paul's Cathedral. Blue text above him says Everybody's Asking For More. Just below the boy's face is more blue text saying Cameron Mackintosh and Matthew Bourne's glorious Dickens of a show. And immediately below that is the title Oliver, with an exclamation mark, in big red letters.
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Variety Is The Spice Of Life

During my first few years in London I joined a few social groups – mainly those for people with visual impairment like the London Vision communities, as well as the non-disabled group Thinking Bob. And they all helped me to settle in, make friends, try new experiences and build my confidence.

However, I got rather pulled away from that kind of thing as I formed my own social circle, had a relationship and dealt with the impacts of lockdown, as well as having to focus more on changes to my career and home life over recent years. So I haven’t been an active member of a social group for quite a while, and those I mentioned above have long since closed.

I’ve continued meeting up with my friends of course, which is always wonderful, so I still have good social interaction. And I’m also happy going out and about by myself sometimes. But there are certain things I can’t or wouldn’t do on my own, plus I want to have more variety and meet new people.

So I’ve been looking to get into more social activities again. And while there are still one or two friendly groups out there for people with sight loss, there aren’t as many as there used to be, and their understandably limited range of activities don’t really grab me a lot of the time to be honest. On top of that, I really want to meet more non-disabled people anyway, as my sight is still good enough that I can do activities with them, even if I need to ask for a little bit of help now and again.

There was one particular group I had in mind in that regard – Spice Social – who I’ve been aware of for quite a while, so recently I decided to give them a try, now that I’m in the age range they market themselves to. It’s still early days of course, and things could easily change as time goes on for all sorts of reasons, but it’s going really well so far.

For clarity, this post isn’t an advert for them, as they haven’t asked me to do it and haven’t even been aware that I’m writing it. I just wanted to fill you in on what I’ve been doing lately, as I’ve attended several events with this group over the past couple of months that I’ve enjoyed, and I have more booked in the near future. So it made sense to dedicate a post to them, and then I’ll probably talk about any future events in my monthly Favourites posts as usual.

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March 2025 Favourites

Hey there, hope you’re doing alright, and welcome to my latest roundup. March has been a bit of a mixed month for me, what with losing our Virgin Media service for almost a week (thankfully now fixed), and hearing about the government’s plans to cut disability benefits (which I’ve talked at length about in a separate post).

But there have been good things too, as I saw a couple of my favourite entertainers live for the first time, and enjoyed a variety of bits and pieces at home. So I’m going to focus on all of that in this post and video, which is relatively short I know, but I hope you find it interesting as usual!

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Doctor Who Review – Torchwood – Series 3 & 4

Welcome back to my final set of reviews for Doctor Who’s adult spin-off Torchwood, starring John Barrowman as the wonderful Captain Jack Harkness. I’ve already reviewed Series 1 and Series 2, but these later series are rather different.

Whereas the previous 2 series each had 13 episodes covering a variety of different storylines, Children Of Earth and Miracle Day each revolve around a single epic story that plays out across the entire series, with 5 episodes in the former and 10 in the latter. Children Of Earth is easily the best, and is where Torchwood really peaks, while Miracle Day is the weakest of all 4 series, but still has plenty to enjoy as long as you relax your expectations a bit.

So this is my review of both of those series, including the Blu-ray extras, and I hope you enjoy!

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Taking The PIP

I very rarely have a rant or talk about politics here, as I like to keep things positive and use this blog as a distraction from the news as much as possible (so don’t worry, I will have my usual monthly roundup of good stuff for you soon). But as the government have got disabled people squarely in their crosshairs at the moment, because we’re such an unwelcome financial burden to them, it would be odd for me not to chuck my two pennies’ worth in, especially as their plans could affect the benefits that I and millions of others receive.

I’m not going to give a deep analysis of it all – goodness knows there are lots of organisations and advocates out there who are far better informed and more articulate than me in covering complex issues like this (e.g. Scope, RNIB, Benefits & Work, Frances Ryan and Jay Watts to name just a few of many). But this is still going to be a bit of a ramble, because I want to give my reaction to the plans to add my voice to all the others, particularly regarding the changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and the way it’s been falsely linked to people’s ability to work.

But ultimately I feel a real sense of unease, disappointment and anger at the way we’re being treated and scapegoated right now. Huge numbers of disabled people and the organisations who support us have already made it abundantly clear to the government that the plans will make things worse rather than better, because we naturally have a deep understanding of what it’s like to live with a disability, claim benefits and try to find work. And I haven’t seen a single disabled person defending what Labour are doing. Yet the government are completely dismissive of all that and insist they know better, and are quite happy to let misinformation spread as well.

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Doctor Who Review – Torchwood – Series 2

Welcome to the second part of my review binge of Torchwood. This is the brilliant Doctor Who spin-off for adults starring the magnificent John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, the handsome, funny, courageous, flirtatious and immortal hero whose team investigate aliens and other strange phenomena that have fallen through a rift in space and time over Cardiff.

I recently reviewed Series 1, where I also discussed Torchwood’s origins and early references in Doctor Who. So now I’m moving straight onto the second series, which stepped things up a gear and gave us some excellent storylines, as they had really found their feet by this point. Plus I’ll mention the Blu-ray extras and a lot of the music as well. I hope you enjoy!

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February 2025 Favourites

Hello again. After a nice quiet January, this has been a slightly busier month for me, as I paid a visit to Kew Gardens to see their Orchid Festival, and I went to the cinema with a couple of friends. The latter in turn led to me watching a few more animated films at home, which has been a bit of a theme recently given my previous reviews of Wallace & Gromit and other Aardman productions, although this time they’re Disney films. So there are a few bits and pieces to mention in this month’s post and video, none of which is sponsored or gifted as usual, and I hope you enjoy!

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Doctor Who Review – Torchwood – Series 1

Welcome to the next in my series of Doctor Who reviews for the modern era. Following on from my reviews of The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 1-2 & Series 3-5, I’m now going to revisit Torchwood, the other much more adult spin-off created by Russell T Davies. The show includes sex, violence, swearing and topics that wouldn’t be at all suitable for Doctor Who. But it’s a lot of fun, with some really interesting stories, distinctive characters, great action, enjoyable humour, a solid soundtrack and beautiful high definition visuals.

I saw it on TV when it first came out and originally bought the DVDs, before I then got all 4 series on Blu-ray. So I already know I like the show, but it’s been quite a while since I last put time aside to watch it. Hence it’s nice to go back through it again, especially as I don’t remember all of the stories vividly. I’ve also compiled big Youtube playlists for Series 1-2 and Series 3-4, with episode clips, behind the scenes footage, music tracks and much more, as I’ve done for my other Doctor Who reviews.

So let’s get on with my in-depth review of the first series, and I hope you enjoy!

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Disney Reviews – The Lion King & Aladdin

For several years now, Disney have been remaking and adapting some of their old animated films with live action or photorealistic animation for modern audiences. Beginning with The Jungle Book, there were a small number of these remakes produced between 1994 and 2010, but since 2014 it’s become a regular occurrence, with one or two films released every year. And there are at least 8 more in the pipeline.

Until recently I hadn’t seen any of those remakes (nor the original films either in some cases), because I just haven’t been interested in checking them out, and I’m perfectly happy with the classic movies I’m familiar with. The one exception was Beauty & The Beast that I saw in 2017, and that was only because I was taking part in a trial of an audio description app that happened to be using that film.

However, this month I decided to do an old vs new comparison of two of my all-time favourite Disney movies that I did watch in my childhood – The Lion King and Aladdin – both of which had remakes released in 2019.

This came about because I recently visited the cinema with a couple of friends to see the Mufasa prequel to the modern Lion King. So it made sense to watch the original Lion King again and compare it with the remake that I’ve never seen before. That meant I had to reactivate my Disney+ subscription for a month, so while I was there I thought I would check out Aladdin as well. And in both cases I discovered that Disney+ has extra features and even the direct-to-video sequels of the original films. So I figured I may as well look through all of that stuff.

As a result I then ended up buying the original films and their video sequels on Blu-ray and DVD, because having rewatched them after all these years I still find them enjoyable, especially the originals. I haven’t got the editions with the most extra features on them, partly because they’re not widely available now but also because I don’t need them anyway. I just went for the editions that were easiest to get hold of and I’m perfectly happy with those. And I’m not interested in owning the remakes, because while they’re interesting to see once out of curiosity, they simply aren’t as good or necessary.

So with all that said, here are my reviews of the films, along with their sequels and extras, and I hope you enjoy!

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