Writer: Jordan Waller
Director: Derek Bond
It’s now just over five years since the last James Bond film, No Time to Die, was due to be released globally. Like everything else, it was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and eventually released in the autumn of 2021.
But since then, the future of the film franchise has been dominated by offscreen intrigue. MGM, the film studio that co-owns many of the Bond copyrights and coproduces the films with the family-owned Eon Productions, is now a subsidiary of Amazon. Eon itself, once led by Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and now run by his daughter Barbara and her half-brother Michael G Wilson, stepped back earlier this year, ceding total control to Amazon MGM Studios.
In time, we’ll discover more about all the back office shenanigans that have kept Bond away from movie screens for years. Until then, we have Jordan’s heavily fictionalised, comedically imagined version in A Role to Die For.
Transferring to London from Cirencester’s Barn Theatre, Waller concocts a completely different family business that is nominally in charge of the Bond movies, but is in a perpetual frenemy situationship with the spaceship-owning head of their streaming overlords, the unseen “Mr LaCroix”.
Tanya Franks is Deborah, the franchise’s mastermind, who is preparing to announce a reboot of the franchise with a new lead actor. But just hours before the dramatic PR reveal, her choice is faced with allegations of sexual predation. As the hashtags #DrNoConsent and #Moonraper start to trend, Deborah, her co-owner cousin Malcolm (Philip Bretherton) and “mediocre nepo baby” son Quinn (Harry Goodson-Bevan) must navigate the fallout, find a replacement who they can claim was the real choice all along, and preserve their status in a world that is changing underneath the family’s feet.
Cory Shipp’s set design focuses on Deborah’s office, an oak-panelled central London splendour adorned with portraits of the previous movie Bonds (sans Lazenby) that also bears echoes of M’s domain in the pre-Vauxhall MI6 days. The latter half of Act I sees the whole set transform into a modern screening room with boujie water bottles and bean bag seating, and while the transition is anything but seamless, the ingenuity of Shipp’s constructions is notable.
The primary focus is on Waller’s fun script, with Franks revelling in her role as an increasingly manic producer. Her American accent may stutter at first, but the increasingly hyper energy levels bring elements of farce to the table. Bretherton is similarly fun as Malcolm, outwardly amiable but not afraid to be as sneaky and manipulative as his cousin Deborah.
Goodson-Bevan makes for the more interesting member of the family, though. Initially appearing in an “Eat the Rich” T-shirt and about to join a protest march with his documentary film-maker boyfriend, his character vacillates between wanting to join the family business and to strike out on his own. This does produce several extreme personality shifts – confident confidante to his mother one second, quiveringly indecisive ingenue the next – that at least fit in with the play’s depiction of constantly shifting loyalties.
Further spanners come hurtling into the works as the family races to find a replacement actor to play Bond. Fun is had with the concept of both focus groups and online discussion forums having decisive opinions about what traits “James Bond” should possess – in terms of global economics, they’d make the most money if the actor is Thai; algorithmically, a 6’ white Briton produces the most reliable and bankable product.
When Deborah finally settles on her son Quinn’s recommendation, a formerly unknown actor ( ’Obioma Ugoala’s Theo) who is currently working as a waiter, the online discourse about whether a Black actor could ever play Bond plays out on stage, too. Ugoala has a cheery, bumbling air as the actor who can’t believe his luck but who seems to be a greater fit as he discusses Fleming’s books and mixes martinis. Waller’s writing touches on some nice points here, as Theo posits that his Bond, like Fleming’s and all the other actors before him, would be a child of Empire, just with a different type of conception.
As Deborah finds out more about Theo’s personal life, though – particularly that he is gay and wants to invite his fiancé to events – her spiralling continues. It’s a fun exploration of how someone can outwardly claim to be progressive, but can be quick to retreat to safer ground at the slightest provocation.
That precipitates a discussion between Ugoala and Goodson-Bevan that, in its quiet simplicity, becomes one of the comedy’s highlights. Waller gives Ugoala’s Theo a speech that weaves the issue of representation, of seeing oneself on screen, with a need for actors to be themselves before they can effectively play anyone else.
That aside, A Role to Die For is generally content to live in the comedic realm. Franks creates a character who is grotesque without ever becoming irredeemably monstrous.
Whether life at Eon Productions is quite as haphazard as this, or whether the company’s relationship with Amazon MGM Studios is quite so riddled with distrust, is anyone’s guess. Jordan Waller’s version of life as a James Bond producer may be wholly imagined, but its ideas about how to modernise a character who was once described on screen as a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” are pertinent and, at times, hilarious.
Continues until 30 August 2025
