All in the name of research
One or two of the cast have never seen a James Bond film or read one of the books so we decided some group research was necessary in order to get a feel for their parts and, you know, maybe the stunts.
So we all headed off to here:
Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond style – an exhibition at the Barbican in London. To ogle at:
Check out those flippers…
Of course, I was eyeing up the props. Mainly because some of the cast had come up to me and said: “We need props. We must rehearse with props.” Don’t worry, you’ll be miming a lot, I said. A lot, I said again to reinforce this is an austerity play in austerity Britain.
But I was actually thinking: if only I could pilfer these:
Aren’t they fab? But probably a bit too big to stick under my coat. I was tempted to drive off in this…
With him. But then I realised none of it was real. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos in the actual exhibition – of the golden girl in Goldfinger, the dazzling golden gun or gold bar signed by Sean Connery. And the gadgets, the dresses, the ski suits and of course the villains. It was iconic Bond.
“The script makes sense to me now,” said one of the cast. (What? It didn’t before?) “I get all the references.”
There was only one way to finish off the day so we headed here:
For one of these:
And our very own pub quiz on Bond. “Who was the only singer to appear in the opening credits singing the title song?” said a new member of the cast – the props person. “Sheena Easton,” said one of the actors who had known nothing about Bond only hours earlier. She had beaten us to the answer. We couldn’t believe it. The research had paid off.
July 16, 2012. Tags: Barbican, blog, Comedy, entertainment, fashion, fiction, Films, James Bond, Style, writing. Blogging, Comedy, Comedy writing, Fiction, Humour, Theatre.
Amritorupa Kanjilal replied:
What an amazing experience it must have been! I am not a bond fan, but I personally know severally, and they would have sold a limb to be able to participate in something like this 🙂
Do visiit!
July 16, 2012 at 9:28 am. Permalink.
WomanBitesDog replied:
It was packed with Bond fans! If only we could have handed out our flyers to our show…
July 16, 2012 at 9:30 am. Permalink.
4amWriter replied:
That’s right! Sheena Easton. I had forgotten that. Looks like you had a great time!
July 20, 2012 at 1:40 am. Permalink.
WomanBitesDog replied:
Too much of a good time!
July 20, 2012 at 1:17 pm. Permalink.