Bonding? A Role To Die For @ Marylebone Theatre, London
Topically, a comedy about choosing the new James Bond, and what happens when their personal lives and choices start to challenge what we expect from a Bond. On stage gadgets, James Bond pastiches and poses make this a lot of fun. But the comedy?…
The comedy was uneven. (I saw A Role To Die for during preview). Overall. it can’t decide if it’s edgy comedy (with poor taste jokes about ‘pedo’s’. #MeToo, child abuse (hinted at) and ‘c’ bombs amongst heavy swearing. Or if it’s James Bond Goes Wrong — there’s a fantastic stuck in a beanbag chair moment, an impressive choking on a piece of muffin scene (wish they’d got the prop off stage after the Heimlich Maneuver though) and some painful falling over due to the new Bond, James Bond, shoes. Or if it’s Broccoli family/James Bond/Eon Productions meets Succession and is full of edginess and swearing, and analysis about the making of the movies. It’s also trying to edge towards Operation Mincemeat with all the phone action going on and plotting.
So you’ll get a prat fall following a ‘c’ bomb or a thoughtful reflection next to an edgy joke, which make it all feel weird, and people weren’t sure when to laugh. However, stay beyond the swearing heavy Act 1 — Act 2 is much better. The new Bond is finally chosen, we get blue(!) martinis and reactions are pointed when some revelations about new Bond’s personal life arise. There’s some really thoughtful discussion of Britishness, who is British and who can be James Bond. Not to mention some interesting representation we don’t normally see on stage and a poignant discussion of what it can be like to be a black actor in the UK. The increasingly frantic and unhinged reactions to their Bond’s behind the dinner jacket real life could have made for great farce, aka The Producers.
In the end, I’m not sure it knew how to end. We got a Madeleine-Mathilde pastiche, which was feisty. One of the narratives ended incredibly grimly and was misjudged. One of the characters returned to a deeply unhealthy relationship, accepting the insults their partner had made against them, forgiving the damage the partner had created against them in their workplace and the public arena, and the abuse of trust. On top of a serious addiction issue they were said to have. ‘Cos love and forgiveness? Essentially we’d seen co-dependency presented as romance. Run away! I really hope they fix this ‘cos it was grim.
I did enjoy the Bondometer algorithm, you can guess who broke it. But this sat oddly against the serious points or the sweary bits, as it was fun and frothy. It was like having a Bond movie with sections played by Daniel Craig and then suddenly Roger Moore took over, waggling those eyebrows! Before handing over to George Lazenby for a cowbell shed fight, at a deeply serious moment.
If this is about legacy, then the comedy needs to examine more of the Broccolis involvement, there’s nothing mentioned of Barbara’s own creative aspirations or initiatives or of the strange battle of the Bonds due to copyright. It just depends how deep the comedy wants to go into things and where it wants to land. If they upped the pace and timing, and added more gags, this could very much be James Bond Goes Wrong. But if it’s Succession with Bond and Broccolis, lose the prat falls. (And some of the props, for — despite slick set changes — they seemed hemmed in at points by some of the furniture on stage. Personally I’d love more gadgets and even a car on stage — surely they could transform a sofa into an Aston (just like in Clueless in the West End)).
My hope is, with time, that they figure out the tone and where they want to land. All the same, it was brave for being forward thinking and not a big nostalgia rush. I really want them to sort out that relationship too!
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