'Tis the season for speculation

We are now in the thick of the 'Silly Season', that summer tradition when nothing of any great note happens and, as a result, the media resorts to non-stories to pep up* an otherwise moribund news agenda. This summer has been somewhat different, however: the front pages have been consumed by nationwide political dysfunction, from Theresa May's aversion to coherent governance to Jeremy Corbyn's abject inability to provide any form of recognisable opposition. To distract from all this we've had Boris Johnson on manoeuvres and the ever-manic circus that is the 45th President of the United States. The only summer consistency has been on the back pages, with their bi-annual rumour mill surrounding the football transfer window, some of which came good, some didn't, but which always managed to fill the void evacuated at the end of the World Cup by actual news.
*Not to be confused with 'Fake news'.

Showbiz doesn't need a silly season, as most of it is silly all year round. But if it does allow a periodical lapse into speculative fantasy, it is over the unanswered future of the James Bond franchise. What we do know is that Daniel Craig has agreed to a fifth and final outing as 007 (for now known only as 'Bond 25'), which will commence filming, presumably, later this year for release in November 2019. What happens after Craig - who'll be 51 when the film comes out - hangs up his Walther PPK, is still open to speculation. As this blog has commented before, the lead character in cinema's longest-running action franchise is one of the most sought-after, which means there's been no shortage of names linked to it, from James Norton and Tom Hiddleston to Tom Hardy and even Gillian Anderson. But the one name that seems to remain fixed in the speculation is that of Idris Elba.

Ever since he first emerged as The Wire's sinister but sophisticated Stringer Bell, Elba has demonstrated an immense screen presence, not to mention a broad range of roles. He is supremely blessed in the charisma department. The question is, is he Bond? Could he be Bond? His tweet the other day - "My name's Elba, Idris Elba" - sent the media - and Bond fans - into a frenzy, reopening the debate about his Bond candidacy and even suggesting that he was not-particularly cryptically telegraphing the fact he had the job in the bag. The official line from Eon Productions is that there isn't a line...yet. Presumably they are focusing on producing Bond 25, still more than a year away from cinema screens. But given their responsibility as custodians of the Bond cinema legacy, and that it had been possible, since Spectre was released in 2015, that Craig wouldn't make another film, surely they've been giving some thought as to who will pick up the licence to kill next.

A few days ago it was reported that Bond supremo Barbara Broccoli had suggested that "it is time" for a non-white actor to play Bond. This, inevitably, has got a lot of people up in arms, not necessarily for racist reasons, thankfully, but for the fact that Ian Fleming's literary creation was somewhat specific and, in most people's minds, manifested perfectly by Sean Connery in Dr. No in 1962. George Lazenby's casting for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (before Connery returned again), was also pretty on the money, much like Timothy Dalton (who captured Bond's more brooding nature) and Pierce Brosnan. Roger Moore and indeed Craig both successfully challenged the idea that Bond couldn't be dark haired (or, in Craig's case, tall), but to date ethnicity hasn't been a matter of discussion.

Just as Jodie Whitaker's casting as the new Doctor Who caused a minor rip in the space-time-continuem, people are very protective of the Bond legacy. Personally I think Elba would be a brilliant choice: from The Wire to Luther, Elba has demonstrated a tremendous screen presence, underpinned by gallons of charisma. The actor certainly would fit the part from all those perspectives. My one doubt, surprisingly, is not the colour of his skin. It's his age. At 46, Elba is, today, older than even Roger Moore when he took on the role, which means that by the time photography would begin on Bond 26, he we will be closer to Daniel Craig's age now. The actor has, himself, also suggested that he may be too old to play Bond (especially with Craig suggesting the physical demands as being a reason to quit, as the series has modernised to compete with the more raw Bourne and Mission: Impossible series). Thus, it's still possible that Elba is simply undertaking a massive wind-up by his tweet. And given the usual tightlippedness surrounding any of the Bond films until they're announced, it's unlikely that Elba would be damaging his chances of being hired by telegraphing it so prematurely.

The reality is that the Broccolis have no need to project their next Bond, just yet. By the time 25 appears, it will be four years since Daniel Craig's last outing, and given his initial reluctance to do a fifth film, the producers, writers and, especially, director Danny Boyle, are going to have to pull something magical out of the bag to keep things fresh. Which is why some are suggesting that the next Bond might have to be an even younger actor - perhaps rebooting the series again with a Millennial-age 007, taking the approach of The Young Indiana Jones or The Young Montalbano. But for now, let's see how this all plays out. A post-Craig James Bond film is still a long way away: it's just that with precious little to write about, the Elba speculation is doing a nice job of filling up otherwise threadbare news pages. Not to mention this blog.

Your move, Mr. Bond

As friends and family will attest, I have a ridiculous affinity for pop trivia. This only worsens when I find myself in, or perilously close to, a location with a strong pop culture connection. For example, I once spent an afternoon in Los Angeles getting shots of street signs on Mulholland Avenue and Ventura Boulevard just to make a short video set to Tom Petty’s Freefallin’. Later in that same LA trip I risked arrest for 'doing a Hugh Grant' by driving repeatedly through the ‘No Cruise’ zone on Sunset Boulevard, purely - and obsessively - to get the perfect shot of the sun setting in order to match it to Steely Dan’s Hey Nineteen (which begins with the line: “Drive west on Sunset to the sea. Turn that jungle music down, just until you’re out of town”).

In the Seattle suburb of Renton - principle attraction, the factory that makes the Boeing 737 - I spent a wet Sunday morning trying to find Jimi Hendrix’s grave. When I did I was astonished to discover that, at the time (1998), there was nothing more to mark the final resting place of rock’s greatest guitarist than a slab with the outline of a Stratocaster on it and the inscription “James Marshall Hendrix - 1942-1970”. I'm pleased to report that since then the grave has been appropriately ‘upgraded’ with a gazebo that now draws in fans to pay proper respect.

More recently in Paris, on discovering I was living right across the road from an apartment which featured in a pivotal scene in The Bourne Identity, I launched a tour of other locations from the film, mostly to satisfy myself that they were as seen. I’d already set a precedent for such film-nerdishness when I first moved to Paris, realising that I was just around the corner from Avenue d’Eylau, which appears in Thunderball as the HQ of SPECTRE.

Here in Florida this week I am equally doused in film and television trivia, especially due to how much the state has appeared in the Bond films, most notably Licence To Kill and Daniel Craig’s first outing, Casino Royale. Which leads me neatly - if highly tenuously - on to the prospect of whether Craig himself will put in another appearance as 007.

“I'd rather slash my wrists than do another one,” was the somewhat nihilistic statement Craig gave Time Out last year when asked. Even taking a little actorly petulance into account, Craig was reacting to the fact he'd taken such a physical punishing making Spectre. Perhaps, at the time, the prospect of a fifth outing as Bond was too much. Cue a flurry of rumouring and theorising as to who could take over, with Tom Hiddleston instantly installed as lead favourite, purely, it should be noted, on the back of The Night Manager (and despite the fact he would be too fey and too posh). In the same frame came Idris Elba (a good shout, actually), the bloke off Poldark who takes his shirt off a lot, Tom Hardy and Damian Lewis, and sundry other himbos on the Equity register. There were even some creditable attempts by the likes of Gillian Anderson and Emilia Clark to throw their respective hats into the ring.

But, while a female Bond or a black Bond might make for interesting change of direction for the 54-year-old series, it would still be regarded as tampering with the DNA of the most longest-running and lucrative franchise in film history, something producers Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson have had little room to play about with. Whether they or anyone else likes it or not, the mould for the screen James Bond was set by Sean Connery, and Craig apart, the Bonds that have followed - George Lazenby, Roger Moore (to some degree...), Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan, have been more or less the same type.


Craig, of course, was the “wrong” Bond, when he was announced: five-feet-ten-inches and blond. And, yet, he has revitalised the franchise. Some would even say that he has finally unlocked the hold Connery’s legacy had over the character. For those of us - and there are many - who found the final Brosnan outing, Die Another Day an overblown and, frankly, ridiculous mess of CGI and ludicrous plot devices, the Craig films have restored Bond to the gripping spy adventures that Connery established in the first place.

“I got the best job in the world doing Bond,” Craig said on Saturday at the New Yorker Festival, sporting blond hair for a new film which recalled Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love. “The things I get to do on a Bond movie, there’s no other job like it,” Craig said. “If I were to stop doing it I’d miss it terribly. I get a massive kick out of it. And if I can keep getting a kick out of it, I will.”

So, is this a change of heart? Well, for one thing, Craig is believed to be contracted to do a fifth Bond film, but such arrangements are never absolute. However, when challenged about his wrist-slitting remarks, Craig joked: “They say that shit sticks, and that definitely stuck,” adding that: “It was the day after filming [had ended on Spectre]. I'd been away from home for a year,” adding that the physical strains of one of film’s most physically demanding roles had taken its toll.” But, not wishing to appear ungrateful, said: “Boo-hoo. It's a good gig. I enjoy it.”

Even if his comments to Time Out were somewhat in the heat - or the pain - of the moment, his quip about “It would only be for the money” may have a ring of truth about it, being reportedly offered up to £120 million to play Bond again. Officially there are no plans for ‘Bond 25’, but given the way these films are made, don’t be surprised if, next month or in December EON productions calls a press conference at Pinewood Studios.

“A Bond movie is by the skin of your teeth,” Craig explained in New York on Saturday. “You get it shot and six months later it’s released. There’s no time for focus groups. You make the movie and then you put it out. It’s one of the most thrilling things as an actor you can do. It’s the way Barbara likes to shoot.”

Ultimately, Broccoli will make the decision on Craig being offered the role again, or whether they move on. “There’s this constant debate about who's going to be the next Bond,” Skyfall and Spectre director Sam Mendes has said recently. “The truth is – and here’s the headline: it’s not a democracy, it's not The X Factor, it's not the EU referendum, and it's not a public vote. Barbara Broccoli chooses who's going to be the next Bond: end of story.”

Craig himself has confessed to being ambivalent about who might take over the Walther PPK if he did decide not to do a fifth Bond film, but has also suggested that the calibre of replacement needs to be high. “You’ve got to step up. People do not make movies like this any more. This is really rare now. So don’t be shit.” One thing is certain, there’s little chance that Bond 25 won’t get made - this is Hollywood, after all, and if anything, the four Craig Bonds have revitalised the series. Anyone taking over now would be stepping in to a golden opportunity. And for Craig himself? He’s only 48. Roger Moore was 58 when he ‘retired’ from the role, although by then it had become preposterous. Craig clearly has a strong sense of his own ability to play he role. It would be nice to think he’s got one more in him.

Now pay attention: let's get Bond right

So let's get this straight: will there be a new James Bond the next time 007 appears on the big screen? Though Daniel Craig hasn't exactly said he won't appear for a fifth time - and the BBC recently reported a source saying that "no decision is likely be made for a while" - the increasing weariness with which he's appeared to talk about a character he revitalised would suggest that, at 48, he will be hanging up the shoulder holster for his Walther PPK. According to another anonymous source, "Daniel is done - pure and simple", and despite being offered oodles of money for another two Bond films, Spectre may prove to be his last.

Which, let's be honest, may be for the best. Not that there was anything wrong with Craig or indeed Spectre itself - a fine addition to the official Bond canon - but as he heads towards his 49th year (as I am - being just four months older), I can see why all that running across rooftops, getting shot at on ski slopes and generally getting beaten about will be losing its lustre. I know I struggle with the Paris Métro first thing in the morning.

So now we must endure the time-honoured tradition of the media guessing game. Without much guessing going on. The press has convinced itself that the next Bond will be Tom Hiddlestone, mostly on the back of his performance in The Night Manager. As good as that was - and he was terrific - Hiddlestone is not Bond for me. Too fey, too posh. Too nice, even.

Now, I know that when Daniel Craig was announced as Pierce Brosnan's replacement the reaction was "too blond, too short, too Scouse" (well, my reaction), and he went on to be arguably the best 007 since Sean Connery. So a tall, lanky, Eton-educated actor like Hiddlestone might surprise us still. But, really.

Connery set the mould; Lazenby replicated it, before Connery briefly returned; Moore turned the character into a camp 70s playboy; Dalton added some celtic grit to the character, again in the Connery manner; and then Brosnan came along, and the franchise gradually descended into self parody with the ridiculous Die Another Day. No surprise, then, that Hiddlestone's portrayal of John le Carré's unlikely spy Jonathan Pine in the BBC's sumptuous adaptation of The Night Manager auto-suggested the idea that he could be a Bond.

There are, though, better candidates. Henry Cavill is the obvious one, being physically closest to the Connery frame, while Tom Hardy would be another to fit the delta of muscularity and sophistication. Damian Lewis crops up, too, in the lists, and that wouldn't be a bad shout, either. And why not Idris Elba, despite the obvious? But then I read that Nicholas Hoult and Jamie Bell are potentials, even though the latter is still, for many of us, Billy Elliott.

Pictures: Twitter/Gillian Anderson

And while we're on the subject of outside bets, Gillian Anderson and Game Of Thrones' Emilia Clarke have thrown their hats into the ring, sort of. Here is, though, where a line must be drawn. And I'm not being sexist in saying so.

James Bond is James Bond. Not Jane Bond or Jamelia Bond. James. Ian Fleming's literary vision was of a tall, dark haired man, resembling Hoagy Carmichael, a fact Bond's ill-faited lover Vesper Lynd remarks upon in Casino Royale - "something cold and ruthless". That description, along with Bond's facial structure and hair colour, cropped up throughout the Fleming books and, of course, influenced the choice of Connery when Cubby Broccoli came calling to make Dr. No into a film.

I've got nothing against Anderson - quite the opposite as it goes - but why would it not be possible for the Bond people, MGM studios and Eon Productions, to create a franchise for her, or any other actress? Are we so insistent on political correctness when it comes to fictional characters that the search for a new James Bond must be turned into an equal opportunities debate? It has nothing to do with the physicality of the part, either. It's really about gender: Bond is male. Has there ever been a debate about a male actor taking over the role of Lara Croft?

I know that I have just come across as the "sexist, misogynist, dinosaur" that M herself accused the Brosnan Bond of being in their opening encounter in Goldeneye, but is it so wrong to keep fictional characters as they were intended, as they were invisioned? And is it so hard to come up with new characters that give actors the opportunity to create a new franchise? There's such a paucity of good, strong characters for female actors as it is, so the idea of repurposing an existing male role seems counter-productive.

Picture: Heineken

Whomever gets the gig, however, will have a lot to live up to. The four Daniel Craig Bond films over the last 11 years have brought the franchise up to date in so many ways, not least of which a welcome dourness to counter some of the needless frivolity that the Brosnan Bond indulged. The two directed by Sam Mendes were both terrific action films and stunning cinematic experiences (Roger Deakins' photography in the Shanghai scenes of Skyfall are amongst my favourite in any movie).

These harder, darker and more contemporary Bond films may not be everyone's Vesper Martini, of course, but the Craig films - even the much-criticised Quantum Of Solace - have, though, demonstrated that Bond could be different and, yet, at the same time, make the character stronger. I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised if, indeed, the job does go to Hiddlestone (or Anderson, for that matter). I just need a lot more convincing of its wisdom.

The Night Manager - a class act

While it could be expected that us British ex-pats are currently consumed by the Brexit discussion, the reality, over the last month, has been somewhat different. 

Those of us living away from our island home have been experiencing considerable frustration at not being able to see why the UK whipped itself into a frenzy - and played out via the press and social media channels - over The Night Manager, the BBC's lavish adapation of John Le Carré's novel about ex-British Army soldier Jonathan Pine and his mission to bring down nefarious international arms dealer, Richard Onslow Roper. But with thanks to Amazon for their swift dispatch of the Blu-ray package of the six-part series, I have allowed myself to catch up in a single evening's binge viewing. And, man alive, it didn't take long to see what the fuss was about.

Now, before I go further, the United States won't get to see The Night Manager for another couple of weeks, so I'll avoid giving any spoilers away. But I will say that this was contemporary spy drama at its very, very best. James Bond and Jason Bourne have, to some degree, shaped our expectations of post-9/11 espionage on screen, and this updated version of Le Carré's book places Pine and Roper in the very recent context of a Middle East consumed by uprising and the horrors of Syria and Iraq we now know so much about. 

Thanks, however, to brilliantly weighted acting and the razor-sharp steerage of Danish director Susanne Bier, the BBC's adapation gets the balance absolutely right, offering a sort of Bond-for-TV while still capturing what Le Carré does so well in his novels - the minute details of espionage and his characters and their intense, complex and subtly evolving relationships. In many respects Le Carré's stories resemble theatre productions, drawing on a core cast of principle characters and the interplay between them, with just enough settings to give the narrative some breathing room. The other way of looking at them is their relative lack of sensationalism - the antipathy of Bond, of course, and from a dramatisation point of view, closer in spirit to Len Deighton's Harry Palmer, who eschewed the Brioni suits and Aston-Martins of 007, for a drab trenchcoat and London Transport buses.

The BBC production does, though, tread gently in the realm of latterday cinematic Bond: the cinematography is stunning, the locations - Roper's Majorcan estate in particular - exquisite, and the build-up of suspense is such that you'd have to have ice flowing through your veins not to want to watch all six parts in one go, given the opportunity.

There is so much to enjoy about The Night Manager, but its biggest virtue is the casting: Tom Hiddlestone as Pine, Hugh Laurie as Roper, the ubiquitous Tom Hollander as Roper's waspish sidekick Lance 'Corky' Corkoran, Olivia Coleman as the George Smiley of the piece, civil servant Angela Burr and her obsession with snaring Roper, along with the catwalk elegance of Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki, David Harewood (last seen being blown up in Homeland), Douglas Hodge and Neil Morrissey (yes, the onetime man behaving badly).

Again, without giving anything away, but Hiddlestone, Laurie, Coleman and Hollander in particular are outstanding. And, perhaps without this being the intention, the reason for their magentism is their portrayal of social standing. Yes, sorry to bring up the c-word. Everyone knows how obsessed we Brits are with class, but it has become unavoidable, especially in the last couple of days, with a Tory government led by an Eton and Oxford-educated stockbroker's son and a clique of school, university and country chums around him, all coupled to the strongly-held belief that Britain's wealthy elite (which represent not much more than 6% of the total population) are in the vast majority of positions of power and influence.

In The Night Manager 'Dicky' Roper is the son of an auctioneer who has built a comfortable and clearly oppulent life for himself selling assault rifles, anti-aircraft missiles and sarin gas to anyone prepared to buy them, and without any moral regard for whom or where the buyers use them on. 

Laurie's Roper is unashamedly posh, something which, with the exception of a certain American doctor, he has built his acting career around, particularly with comic toffs like Blackadder's Prince George/Captain George and Bertie Wooster to Stephen Fry's Jeeves. Here, though, Laurie plays the villain, and one with borderline mysognistic tendencies and a close-knit clique of associates, the origin of which is not explained but could be from either military service or an establishment like Eton (which Laurie also attended, as did Hiddlestone and fellow thesps like Damian Lewis, Eddie Redmayne and Dominic West). 

This inner circle behave as one would expect those who were members of the Bullingdon Club to behave: a group of upper-crust rugger-buggers in expensive suede loafers who see the nature of their business as simply that, business. To add to it, there are the nasties of MI6, including the cynical, sneering Geoffrey Dromgoole, played by Tobias Menzes, who plays Whitehall mandarins and powerbroker with consumate ease (see Skyfall and The Thick Of It).

Little is known, or is meant to be known, however, about Hiddlestone's Pine. But given the context of his service in Iraq and his officer's deportment (contrasted by Roper's Scottish ex-SAS grunt bodyguard Frisky), he adds to The Night Manager's unspoken class narrative. Pine may have chosen to leave the army for the relative anonymity of manning a hotel's night desk, but Hiddlestone plays him as well-bred but enigmatically damaged, in sharp contrast to Roper's cockiness and illicitly acquired wealth. To puncture all this toffery, Coleman as Angela Burr (a change from the book, whose equivalent character was male) is a pregnant, loveless but professionally focused housewife with a strong Northern accent, working in the prosaic confines of a drab London office, a classic Le Carré motif to demonstrate that spycraft isn't all about vodka martinis. The class divide couldn't be more pronounced.

Authentic, real-world espionage in the era of jihadism may have nothing to do with chaps quaffing vintage cognac in gentlemen's clubs and addressing each other as "old boy", but I've got to admit that all of the rich, received-English accents in The Night Manager (alongwith the integral theatre of the British establishment) make it all the more better.

And for American audiences who will see the series later this month, Laurie and Hollander will add themselves to that volumous tradition of English actors who do villainy so well. Because let's face it, if you want a baddie, pick a Brit. Peter Cushing in Star Wars, Ian McKellen in The X-Men, Christopher Lee, Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons in their respective Die Hards, Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, even George Sanders voicing the ruthless tiger Shere Khan in Disney's original Jungle Book, the list is endless. Better still, pick a caddish, posh Brit.

Of course, screen villainy isn't just for those with a cut glass accent: in theory, Roper could have been recharacterised as a Marbella-dwelling East End bad'n. Tony Soprano was clearly in this social bracket as the son of a Newark mafiosi who continued the family business with all the traditions of working class southern Italian crime that went with it (including a crew dressed mainly in tracksuits and gold jewellery). But whereas Soprano was actually the protagonist of The Sopranos, in The Night Manager, Roper's poshness amplifies his villainy, with Laurie adding a plummy, sinister sheen to the part aided by the rich timbre of his voice. 

Yes, it is about breeding and, yes, it is about class. And, yes, it comes over as being all the more authentic, especially in these times when priviledge is both visible and, it would appear, it really is not about what you know, than whom.