Re: The BBC Radio 4 James Bond series
I’m currently listening to these radio adaptations.
I would prefer it if the novels were simply read out rather than just have the dialogue extracted and made into a radio play. The dialogue on its own, without Fleming’s marvellous descriptive skills, leaves the stories bereft of substance. And the dialogue alone can never compare to watching a Bond film in all its visual glory. It is like doing a radio adaptation of just the dialogue of 2001: A Space Odyssey—what would be the point of that?
I like John Standing's portrayal of M. He humanises M, and makes him less of a grump than Bernard Lee’s M. Toby Stephens similarly humanises Bond, but too much in my view. His Bond comes across as a little too “everyman” and cheery. Dalton’s Bond was also human, but his had a nervous edge, which a man who is in constant danger would have.