Ben Whishaw: The Spy Who Loved D

London Spy is the story of a chance romance between two people from very different worlds, one from the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, the other from a world of clubbing and youthful excess.

Whishaw plays Danny – gregarious, hedonistic, romantic and adrift, who falls for the anti-social enigmatic and brilliant Alex (played by [Edward] Holcroft). Just as the two of them realise that they're perfect for each other, Alex is found dead. Danny, utterly ill-equipped to take on the complex and codified world of British espionage, must decide whether he's prepared to fight for the truth...

BBC blurb.

The first screenplay by acclaimed thriller writer Tom Rob Smith, London Spy stars Whishaw as Danny, an openly gay drifter who falls in love with the enigmatic Alex, a closeted investment banker (or so he claims). It would be wrong of me to give too much away, suffice to say that the story would seem to be inspired in part by the real-life case of Gareth Williams, the M16 agent whose corpse was found locked in a holdall in 2010.

For Whishaw, who has played so many vacillating characters over the years – from Shakespeare’s ultimate ditherer, Hamlet, to the bisexual John in Mike Bartlett’s Royal Court play Cock – Danny’s unambiguous sexuality makes a welcome change. “That’s one thing he’s very clear about and very strongly embodies and no problem,” says Whishaw, who himself came out as a gay man in 2013, after the Daily Mail started digging around in his private life...

While Whishaw delved into the history of M16 for his role in Spectre, he says he deliberately avoided research for London Spy. “Because Danny is not from the world that he finds himself thrust into, it was very important to that he doesn’t know he’s in a spy drama,” he says of a character that reminds him of many people he knows. “He has never found a path really, I suppose… lots of potential that’s never been realised or properly tapped into. Yeah, he’s lost in a way that’s so easy to happen in London.”

Independent, October 23rd.

PS It looks like the Freddie Mercury biopic, somewhat inexplicably set to star gentle Ben, is 'trapped in development hell'.

James Bond: 'The Name's Moron, Piers Moron...'

If James Bond’s gay, then the whole tone of the franchise has to go gay too.

His lovers would be gay men, Bond Girls would become Bond Boys.

‘What’s the problem with that?’ I hear the PC brigade howl (they always howl, FYI.)

Well, nothing. Except I wouldn’t want to watch that, and nor I suspect would the vast majority of Bond movie fans.

So the film would tank, and the franchise would die.

This is not homophobia – I think I proved my anti-homophobia chops on air at CNN and regularly on social media - it’s simple commercial reality.

Bond’s 50-year brand has been built on a clear, definable platform of him being a ruthless, womanising assassin.

And it’s been one of the most enduring, successful brands in the history of cinema.

 For an example of what can go wrong if you dupe an audience, take the case of George Michael.

He had a brilliant pop career, right up to the moment where he came out as gay.

Then his record sales fell off a cliff. *

It wasn’t his sexuality that was the problem. It was the fact that he’d misled millions of adoring female fans for years into thinking he was a straight guy who wanted to bed them.

George’s brand was the great romantic seducer of, and crooner to, women – and when his closet sprang gloriously open, many of those women ran for the hills of Justin Timberlake.

So no, James Bond can’t be gay. It just wouldn’t work.

(I doubt even the gay community really wants Bond to be gay – right now, he surely remains the ultimate unobtainable challenge?) ...

Daily Mail.

Piers Morgan weighs in on one of the most pressing issues of the day.

Ironically sounding like one of James Bond's biggest fans, Alan Partridge.

Once more... James Bond is a fictional character.

* Possibly Freudian choice of words here.

PS Here's an interview with Mark O'Connell author of the acclaimed Catching Bullets: Memoirs Of A [Gay] Bond Fan. 

@Fagburn Hey. Oh that old one. He isn't but is easily able to pretend otherwise if the mission needs it. He likes to help out at weekends!

— Mark O'Connell (@Mark0Connell) October 29, 2015

Showbusiness: In The Absence Of News

Roger Moore, who please bear in mind is 88, says that James Bond, who please bear in mind is an entirely fictional character, can not be gay or 'a lady Bond' * A 'really adorable gay couple' (barf!) didn't make it to the X Factor final * Sir Tim Rice makes a completely unconvincing case that the 'baffling lyrics' to Bohemian Rhapsody was 'Freddie's coming out song'; '"I see a little silhouetto of a man” – that’s him, still being haunted by what he’s done, and what he is.'" An interpretation of the next line 'Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?' is sadly omitted * Will 'Nice But Dim' Young says in 2012 he checked into a clinic and was told he had post-fame PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). 'I must admit I am baffled. I thought PTSD was linked to single events — a bomb explosion in Iraq, say, or a car crash,' notes The Times' journalist wrily * Mark Feehily, he was the gay one in Westlife you may just recall, has made his first solo album. He has written some songs about his ex-boyfriends. Expected sales: 27 * Everybody loves 'impish star' Ben Whishaw, 'the delicate frame and gentle voice of... MI6’s resident geek, Q...' * Vincent Price might have been bisexual * Casey Conway, another retired rugby player you've never heard of before is gay, he's now pushing over-priced swimwear * Nobody has a clue who those two gay footballers could be, or indeed if they exist * More boring showiz gossip when we hear it...

Thought For The Day (1959): James Bond

Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and 'sex equality’.

From Goldfinger by Ian Fleming, quoted in The Telegraph.

It has been announced that James Bond is getting an 'outspoken gay friend' (Sassy GBF?) in the new post Fleming novel, Trigger Mortis.

Woo!

PS 'Chuck Wendig, author of the new Star Wars novel Aftermath, has told fans who have objected to his inclusion of a gay character that “You’re not the good guys ... You’re the shitty, oppressive, totalitarian Empire.” And added: “If you can imagine a world where Luke Skywalker would be irritated that there were gay people around him, you completely missed the point of Star Wars”.

Guardian online.

James Bond: Ho Mo 7

Former James Bond and Professional Heterosexual Pierce Brosnan certainly thinks it’s time, but he admits that there was always resistance about the idea of a gay Bond. In a recent interview, he said: “"Actually, I don't know how it would work. I don't think Barbara [Broccoli, the James Bond producer] would allow a gay Bond to happen in her lifetime. But it would certainly make for

interesting viewing.”

He's largely talking out of his tail-pipe; of course Bond could be gay. He could be blond, vegetarian, he could back Jeremy Corbyn if he really wanted. None of those qualities directly tie into what the films are about - a secret agent fighting a group of slightly racist stereotypes in the name of protecting our beautiful little country.

Bond being gay is fine, in theory. But beneath the surface, there's a clearer subtext to Brosnan's words. It's not that he couldn't be gay, but that many believe he shouldn't. The Great British public, the thinking goes, would reject a gay Bond, and in doing so would destroy a dearly beloved institution and a pillar of masculinity in one fell swoop.

"Who would choose to go and see a gay Bond?" is just a fiddlier version of the argument "who would want to be gay?" The logic is that 'straight' is 'normal' and therefore 'best'. It's the default, it's not offensive. So making Bond gay would be a gamble; throwing away something we know straight audiences love and trying something they might be hostile towards...
Chris Mandle, Daily Telegraph.

James Bond: The Spy Who Mark Loves

Divorced parent Sundays were now marked by 007 pursuits. James Bond posters covered my bedroom and for the first time Dad thought I was interested in a hot-blooded male pursuit. There had been an inkling that the young Smurfette's non-rugby and non-blokey leanings might signpost a non-heterosexual future. Correctly. But my adolescent closet was papered shut with posters of Special Agent 007 and assorted Bond girl legs and thighs. A gay Catholic boy and 007 are not natural bedfellows...

Mark O'Connell writing in The Guardian today.
Mark is the author of Catching Bullets - about growing up as a (gay) James Bond fan.
Though I've never been interested in 007, I find gay mens' obsessions - both the ones that we share and these more idiosyncratic ones - endlessly fascinating. 
He tweets about Bond and his (much-praised) book here. 
And here's a recent interview with Out magazine that discusses ver gay stuff.
By a nice piece of synchronicity/serendipity, Catching Bullets has been published at the time of a tiny storm in a martini glass about James Bond's sexuality in Skyfall and beyond.
Obviously, you couldn't have a British secret agent who's gay - the very idea's preposterous!

James Bond: Ah, Mr Moneypenny...

One of James Bond’s biggest fans, David Walliams, revealed a conversation he had with producer Barbara Broccoli when guesting on the One Show yesterday:
“I did ask her to be Moneypenny. I said: if M is a woman, why can’t Moneypenny be a man, and have a crush on James Bond? But she just laughed, and not in a good way.”

Via Unreality TV.
Shame. Sounds so very different to Sebastian Love in Little Britain... 

Gareth Williams: Take Off Your Tinfoil Hat

"For people who feel a need to believe in conspiracies, here's one sitting there waiting for them. Just imagine the CIA deciding, How can we undermine and destroy all of these popular movements? Let's send them off on some crazy wild goose chase which is going to involve them in extremely detailed microanalysis and discussion of things that don't matter. That'll shut them up. That's happening... In case anybody misunderstands, I don't believe this for one moment, but it's the kind of thing that goes around."

Noam Chomsky.

Of course, the open verdict in Gareth Williams' inquest is an invitation to stupidity and wild speculation. 
Otherwise intelligent people lose all power of reason.
How depressing.
Williams was involved in quite mundane deskwork - certainly not any James Bond subterfuge and derring-do
The secret services would have wanted to make sure no sensitive and/or confidential information was exposed, this would be standard procedure, and is not indicative of any sinister intent.
There was no evidence of foul play in Gareth Williams' death.
It's beyond daft to then argue; "Well, someone must have destroyed the evidence, then."
It's far more likely that there was no evidence, because there was no evidence.
Just as the reason there is no evidence that monkeys built the moon out of cheese in 1949 is not because someone has destroyed the evidence, but because there is no evidence for it.
Just as it's far more likely Gareth Williams had an unconventional sex life, rather than him being taken out in a hit by Blofeld and his hired goons at SMERSH via the notorious "Put a body in a sports holdall" assassination technique.
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but real life and the real world tend to be rather boring and mundane.