BBCR4 + RA.cc: JAMES BOND: From Russia With Love RADIO DRAMA

From Russia With Love is the third James Bond RADIO DRAMA made for BBC Radio 4 by the wife and husband team of Rosalind Ayres and Martin Jarvis. And it’s absolutely wonderful!

Compared to the movie adaptation, which complicates the plot and adds in more action sequences, this radio drama versio of the novel is much more of a straight-up espionage thriller. In fact it’s so straight-up it feels kind of like an episode of The Sandbaggers. Smart, realistic, gritty. But as with any Bond tale it’s also loaded with sexiness. I’m really in awe at the skill and scale of these adaptations.

Toby Stephens is absolutely terrific as Bond. And Olga Fedori, the spy who loves him, is the best “Bond girl” I’ve ever heard. Fedori plays Corporal Tatiana Romanova, the a Soviet state assigned seductress of 007. She’s a pawn in a game being played by SMERSH, the counter-intelligence agency of the Red Army.

Within the luxurious ninety minutes of the play you get a real sense of a story being told.

When I watch the James Bond movies it rarely occurs to me that there’s much of a plot in between the action sequences. In fact, I don’t well recall any of the Bond movie plots very distinctly. The movies, even though I mostly love them, are more apt to treat the plot’s premise as an excuse to get to the next exotic location or to the next fantastic stunt sequence. They’re more cartoon than novel. Not so with this adaption. Colonel Rosa Klebb, one of the big baddies of both, is creepy like she is in the movie, but with this radio adaptation you’ll almost feel bad for her in her later scenes. The one liners are there, but they’re not laughing jokes as much as they are punctuation marks for the gallows humour of Bond.

The radio drama adaptation offers a two kinds of Russian love, the sentimental and the soft, and the hard and the ruthless.

Indeed, the intimacy of audio version is amazing. Bundled up snugly on the Orient Express with the two sexy cold war era spies is a wondrous treat you can’t afford to let yourself miss.

From Russia With Love
Based on the novel by Ian Fleming; Performed by a full cast
1 MP3 via TORRENT – Approx. 87 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 – The Saturday Play
Broadcast: July 21, 2012
Provider: RadioArchive.cc
It’s 1955 and the Russians plan an act of terrorism. Choice of target? James Bond. To be ‘killed with ignominy’: a major sex scandal will leave his reputation, and that of MI6, in tatters. Colonel Rosa Klebb of the KGB devises a plan to lure Bond into their trap, using beautiful Corporal Tatiana Romanova as bait – plus a Spektor, the latest Russian decoding device. MI6 learns that Tatiana wants to defect and ‘M’ orders Bond to Istanbul. When Tatiana makes contact she seems to be in love with him – but is she? Either way, he soon falls for her and they leave Istanbul together, accompanied by larger-than-life Darko Kerim, Head of British Intelligence in Turkey. The climax of the drama includes a surprising confrontation between Bond and the murderous Rosa Klebb. In writer Archie Scottney’s brilliantly evocative ‘radio screenplay’, we see another side to 007. Unsure of his judgement, can he bring the lovely Tatiana safely to England, along with the precious Spektor? Will the Russians succeed in having Bond killed? If so, who is the would-be murderer?

Cast:
General/Rene ….. John Sessions
Kronsteen ….. Mark Gatiss
Major/KGB director/Barman ….. Jon Glover
Rosa Klebb ….. Eileen Atkins
James Bond ….. Toby Stephens
May ….. Aileen Mowat
‘M’ …… John Standing
Moneypenny ….. Janie Dee
‘Q’ ….. Julian Sands
Kerim ….. Tim Pigott-Smith
Manager/Conductor ….. Matthew Wolf
Tatiana ….. Olga Fedori
Announcer ….. Micky Stratford
Nash ….. Nathaniel Parker
Ian Fleming ….. Martin Jarvis

Specially composed music by Mark Holden and Michael Lopez

Director: Martin Jarvis
Producer: Rosalind Ayres
A Jarvis & Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.

Trailer for the movie version:

Posted by Jesse Willis