'A Role To Die For' (DEM Productions)
Shady Tree
London, UKPosts: 3,138MI6 Agent
I've booked to see 'A Role To Die For' in late July in the Marylebone Theatre in London. It's a satirical comedy about the process of the casting of the next James Bond - and possibly already out of date if the play's protagonist, Deborah, is meant to be based on Barbara Broccoli, who has recently ceded creative control of Bond to Amazon. The production, which has had its intial run in Gloucester, is playing in London till the end of August.
I wonder if the writer, Jordan Waller, perused this forum's own 'Imaginary Conversations' for ideas! Or if they've hurriedly added a new final Act for the London dates about BB's and MGW's relinquishment of control?: there'd be enough material there for David Hare!
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
Comments
Now that's something I'd like to see, though unless it goes on tour that's not likely. Let me know if you recognise any of the jokes?
That looks really interesting…I look forward to your review 😁
I saw the play this evening and enjoyed it. It's a satirical comedy about the trials and tribulations of Bond producers Deborah (Tanya Franks) and Malcolm (Philip Bretherton), set in the mahogany-furnished office Deborah inherited from her movie mogul father. The pair contend with casting issues, questions of succession, and the interests of their corporate partner, to whom, in the end, they sell their stake.
The play addresses celebrity scandals and questions of representation. What if an actor leaked as the next Bond, a day before the official announcement, is suddenly exposed as a sexual predator (#DoctorNoConsent)? What if their replacement (Obioama Ugoala), a black actor, turns out to be gay? Should that matter? Deborah's son (Harry Goodson-Bevan), who is himself gay, is still an intern at his mother's company and has mixed feelings about inheriting the mantle of Bond producer. What's more, his boyfriend may be the source of the leaks.
As I remarked in the Q&A at the end of this evening's performance, the style and pitch of the comedy puts me in the mind of Guy Jenkin's 1990s TV series, 'Drop The Dead Donkey', a topical satire set in a fraught television news studio, Globelink. The director of 'A Role To Die For', Derek Bond, acknowledged the similarity between Jordan Waller's writing for the play and Jenkin's writing, observing that both shows are workplace comedies. (In fact, Derek Bond directed 'Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening' in 2024, a stage adaptation of the TV series.) In 'A Role To Die For', the frequent sweary rows between the stressed-out Deborah and Malcolm, brimming with sarcasm, are very much in the idiom of 'Drop The Dead Donkey', but are a tad too shouty for my taste, especially on Philip Bretherton's side. What's needed as well is some quieter, 'choral' irony, of the kind provided by Neil Pearson's character in the broader ensemble of 'Drop The Dead Donkey'.
One of the impressive aspects of 'Drop The Dead Donkey' on TV was that material would be quickly written and recorded for each episode to incorporate references to that week's news stories, keeping the show fresh and topical. In the case of 'A Role To Die For', what we have instead is remarkable serendipity: the play's Gloucester run began in February, with Malcolm and Deborah written as selling their stake in Bond even before the real-life news broke of Michael G Wilson's and Barbara Broccoli's decision to relinquish Eon's creative control of the franchise. Highly prescient writing!
During the Q&A it was emphasised that the play's characters are fictitious, a clarification necessary to avoid libel. I'm glad that's the case, because the central conflict of the play, between Deborah and Malcolm, positions them on opposing sides of 'the culture wars', with Malcolm very much on the dinosaur wing. But Deborah, too, is a hardened pragmatist, willing when necessary to set aside ideological scruples for the greater good of the franchise. I'd hate to think that the relationship between BB and MGW was anything like as acerbic as that between Deborah and Malcolm. My favourite rant of Malcolm's is one in which he rails against streaming services and how they could ruin Bond: Bond should be an event, not a clip you watch on your phone when sitting on the toilet (or words to that effect!)
In Deborah's office, a large portrait of Sean Connery as Bond hangs at the centre of the back wall, flanked by smaller portraits of the other Bond actors. Connery's image is his FRWL publicity shot as Bond in a tux, smiling and holding a gun to his face. (On the other hand, George Lazenby's portrait is a miniature, which is a cheap joke at his expense.) Towards the end of the play, Deborah reaches a crisis point and punches a hole right through the Connery portrait, ripping it apart. It's an iconoclastic moment, more powerful, perhaps, than the script really earns or can deal with. In the Q&A, I asked what punching Connery was intended to signify. Waller suggested that, although it might mean a number of things, Deborah could be channelling her frustration with her father's legacy, or the toxicity of all the male characters around her, arguing about the Bond franchise.
Deborah slumps on the stage and her outburst is counterpointed by her sentimental recollection of when her father took her, as a child, to see the premiere of his 'Diamonds Are Forever' - the time she fell in love with all things Bond. I can empathise with that, as I too became a Bond fan for life while watching DAF in a packed cinema, in 1972.
Worth catching if you can.
Interesting stuff…thanks for the appraisal 😁
Interesting sounding play, having seen it do you think it was better for being literally Bond or should they have made a fictional version? Seems a bit odd to someone who hasn’t seen it that they’ve made up these characters but made it about a real film series (with quite famous producers).
Jordan Waller said in the Q&A that his starting point was a frustrating experience he'd once had, working on a film where the A-list lead actor withdrew at the last minute. This gave him, Waller, the impetus to write a play about movie casting issues. At the same time, rife speculation about the casting of the next James Bond, a tradition in popular media, seemed fertile ground for exploring notions of Britishness, race, gender and sexuality. Waller knows his Bond, and the immedately recognisable frame of reference to OO7 - visual and musical, as well as in the dialogue - anchors the play with short-hand access to the issues he wants to explore. Although a satirical comedy, the play has a tragic arc, and I guess his use of a fictional parallel with ideas about what BB's latter days on Bond might have been like lends itself to that.
In many ways it's a nostalgic play: the classic Bond songs play in the theatre before the performance and throughout the interval, and portraits of the Bond actors as OO7, posing with guns, loom over a set which vaguely resembles M's original office; but the 'Drop The Dead Donkey'-inflected style of using coarse, bumptious humour as a sounding board for issues of topical pertinence - a particular idiom of satire - seems itself to be a little dated, too, reminiscent of how 'alternative comedy' had evolved by the 90s.
Fascinating, thanks @Shady Tree. Hope it goes on the road or at least comes a bit further north. A good bit further.