Sunshine Playroom

70 years ago today, Capitol Records opened it’s first office in a second floor room, just south of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Founded by songwriters Johnny Mercer and Buddy DeSylva, along with record store owner Glenn Wallichs, within a few weeks of this humble start it had released it’s first single Cow Cow Boogie, [...]

Saturday 21st April saw the latest annual Record Store Day celebrated here in the UK, and around the world, with a raft of special limited edition vinyl and cd releases (and some tapes!) released especially for the event and available exclusively through participating independent stores. It’s now the busiest day of the year for those [...]

Between the two of them, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie seperately wrote many of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits, during a phenomenally successful period for the band that saw them sell millions of albums, and singles worldwide. Hits such as Dreams, Don’t Stop, Little Lies, Rhiannon and You Make Lovin’ Fun showcased their talent to great [...]

In what must be good news for fans of The Comic Strip Presents…, it was announced this week that it is to return for a one-off sixty minute special on Channel 4 later this year. Once again written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens, who wrote many of the previous comedies in the series over [...]

I started writing Sunshine Playroom in late 2009, and at the time chose to use WordPress as the platform to publish it on, and it’s served me very well up to now. Just recently though I decided to take a better look at some of the other blogging platforms that out there, in particular, Blogger [...]

If there was one consistent criticism of Doctor Who under previous showrunner Russell T. Davies, it was that he focused too much on “soap opera” elements, with the constant returning to the Powell Estate and the Tyler family. This year you could be forgiven for suggesting that latest showrunner Steven Moffat has turned the show [...]

Torchwood, the BBC sci-fi show, and Doctor Who spin-off, returns to our screens soon for a fourth series entitled Torchwood: Miracle Day. Having previously been set largely in Cardiff for it’s first three seasons, this new ongoing story sees some significant changes as it moves on to a global stage, with adventures set this time [...]

Doctor Who A Good Man Goes To War, the mid-season finale, attracted 5.5 million viewers according to overnight figures. The long-running secret of River Song‘s true identity was finally revealed, and viewers also learnt more about Amy‘s baby, and why she is so important to the Doctor’s enemies. It also saw returns for many of [...]

Sarah Michelle Gellar finally makes a return to television later this year in a new drama show called Ringer, and almost as if to make up for the long wait, plays two characters rather than just one. Gellar, in her first tv role since Buffy The Vampire Slayer finished in 2003, will play identical twin [...]

The Almost People was the second episode of a two part Doctor Who adventure that attracted 5.0 million viewers at the weekend according to unofficial overnight figures. Not only did it continue and conclude the previous week’s proceedings, but it also finished on what was (and had been hyped up in the press and online) [...]