Goldfinger: The Radiogram (Part 2)

Further to a previous spleen-vent, don’t forget to tune in to Radio 4 at 2.30 this Saturday afternoon to listen to the picture-free version of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger, especially if you like listening to well-known actors exaggerating all their lines as if the lack of visuals means they have to act twice as hard and twice as loud using only their vocal chords.

In case you find it difficult to cope without some kind of visual stimulus you could always goggle at this picture of the cast while listening, although you may be distracted by Rosamund Pike’s visible discomfort at having Tim Pigott-Smith’s hand on her shoulder. It’s either that or Tom Hollander’s hand on her beautocks.

To get you in the mood, here’s a one-minute clip:

ACTORS, ACTING

Alternatively, you could always watch the film

Or read the book

Or listen to the soundtrack

Or read the comic strip

Or wear the watch

Or play with the car

Or eat off the plate

Or comment on this post, by clicking here

Goldfinger: The Radiogram

Great news! If, that is, your definition of "great" is "rubbish, and largely unwelcome". BBC Radio 4 are broadcasting an adaptation of Ian Fleming's 'Goldfinger' in April, starring former Bond film actor Toby Stephens as 007, former Bond film actress Rosamund Pike as Pussy Galore and former Bond film actor Tim Pigott-Smith as DuPont. In fact there are so many Bond film alumni in it that I wouldn't be surprised if Desmond Llewellyn himself rose from the grave to urge 007 to grow up.

"But The Incredible Suit", I hear you cry, "you're a manically deranged, borderline psychotic Bond fan who owns one of Sean Connery's toupees and a pair of Daniel Craig's trunks, surely you lap this kind of thing up?" Well, yes and no. Yes, in that when Radio 4 did the same thing with 'Dr No' a couple of years ago, I downloaded it and spent a tedious bus journey through a remote and ugly part of China listening to it. No, in that it was abominably bad.

Toby Stephens, one of the movie series' worst ever villains, was hammier than a herd of pigs in a vat of salt brine, and David Suchet, as the eponymous bad guy, employed such a ludicrous vocal interpretation that it was as much as I could do to resist winding down the bus window and hurling my mp3 player into the nearest paddy field. Imagine a parrot emulating William Shatner's syntax while delivering lines like "No... BODY who... comestothis ISLAND has EEE-ver left it. DOYOUUNDERSTAND?!?! NOBODY!!!!!!"

So it is with no small amount of fear and anguish that I approach the 'Goldfinger' adaptation, which will feature Ian "Surrian" McKellen - no stranger to a bit of over-the-top luvvitude himself - as the titular precious metal-hoarding lardbucket. It's a useful bit of pub quiz trivia that the first actor to play 007 on the radio was Bob "Can I have a P please" Holness, in a version of 'Moonraker' in 1956. So I suppose we should be grateful that today's quiz show hosts aren't getting in on the act, or we'd have Vernon Kay or the AntDecBorg wrapping their cheeky chappie tonsils around Fleming's words.

All of which leads to the inevitable graph of greatness of various formats of James Bond storytelling:

To comment on this post, click here