Bond & Beyond

As we prepare to take a break from the podcast - panic not, Bond & Beyond will return - James and Alex dust off the last few emails and messages we've received. These address hard-hitting questions, like the ones posed to Mythbuster Matt about Never Say Never Again's urine fight, or whether we actually do any research for this show. APOLOGY: There seems to be a slight audio problem with this episo...

Alex and James take a look at the unofficial Bond film and Sean Connery's final silver screen outing as 007. Borne out of a legal dispute between Thunderball director Kevin McClory and everyone who actually made Bond film, Never Say Never Again is a beat-for-beat repeat of Connery's fourth adventure - in some way better, in other much worse. Listen in as we discuss Bond's challenging mission of......

With EON Productions finally announcing both a distributor and a director, it's time to start speculating about Bond 25 (again). Trainspotting and 127 Hours director Danny Boyle takes the helm, meaning we can expect a very different Bond film compared to 007's previous outings, but that's just the beginning of our questions. How will Craig end his era of reinvention for the franchise? Will Christo...

With apologies to Gobinda. Bond & Beyond finally gets round to reviewing one of Alex's favourites, and perhaps a hidden gem among Moore's various outings as 007 - and no, that's not a jewellery smuggling pun. Alex and James discuss the strangely perfect mix of camp and complex, where a film that is ultimately about James Bond disarming a nuclear bomb while disguised as a circus clown somehow manag...

Alex and James are joined by British composer Richard Jacques – best known for his work on countless video games, including 007: Blood Stone. Recorded in his own studio, this episode discusses what gives soundtracks that Bond-like quality, Jacques' own experiences (and various direct connections) to the franchise, and the art of making music for video games. If you want to email us, you can do so...

Alex and James are once again joined by author and Bond fan Mark O'Connell to discuss Sean Connery's (sort of) swansong as Ian Fleming's 007. Once again recording in a secret (and absurdly professional) location, we discuss Diamonds Are Forever - perhaps the campest, definitely the Vegasest Bond outing to date. Listen in as we celebrate Tiffany Case, argue about Plenty O'Toole, groan over the Moon...

Alex and James are joined by very special guest Mark O'Connell, author of Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan. Recording in a top secret location (hence the much better sound quality), we grill Mark about his earliest experiences with 007, his thoughts on the Craig films and where they might be heading, changing attitudes towards the series and his fascinating family connection to the filmmake...

Alex and James wrap up 2017 with a few of the emails that have been piling up in the Bond & Beyond inbox. Listen in as we answer your questions about what makes a great callback to earlier Bond films, and which of 007's ladies we'd like to settle down with. We also share our listeners' insight into burning questions like whether you can parasail with an umbrella, if you're allowed to drop bodies i...

Having vowed to keep this reviews a little shorter, Alex and James rattle through Roger Moore's fifth outing as 007: For Your Eyes Only. Join them as they attempt to make sense of the seemingly endless and random string of incidents in which people try to kill Bond - all the while trying to avoid being distracted by that annoying ice skating teen, the so-bad-it's-brilliant soundtrack and Game of T...

James and Alex share their thoughts on what is perhaps Sean Connery's grandest outing. You Only Live Twice has everything: a sinister plot that threatens world dominations, great music, great locations, great action scenes, and plenty of insignificant holes for us to pick at. Tune in to find out more about the secret Golf Ball meeting room that we the British use to police the world, the true iden...

Alex reports back from Casino Royale Live at the Albert Hall, which gives James another excuse to geek about how good James Bond soundtracks - particularly David Arnold's - are.  The duo also touch on other Bond concerts they've been too and discuss which classic films they'd like to see get the Albert Hall treatment. As always, our episodes can be found at bondbeyodpod.tumblr.com. You can chat to...

We finally attempt to review Spectre properly, two years after our initial impressions - plenty of time for the hype to die down. Listen as we discuss Blofeld's lack of socks, the finale's lack of tension, and the soundtrack's lack of effort. We also nail down where exactly we feel the film begins to to fall down in terms of quality - for James, it's  a lot later than you might think. Naturally gi...

We're back after another apologetically but unavoidably long absence. Having finally been drip-fed the first details on the next James Bond film and Daniel Craig's confirmed return, we ponder what we can expect from the future of the series. We also read out the latest letters that have made it to our inbox - an impressive feat, given that we've been giving you the wrong email address. If you do w...

Strap in and brace yourself - the Bond & Beyond review for Die Another Day is almost as long as the film itself (but hopefully better thought out and considerably more entertaining). Unquestionably the low point of the entire series and the unfortunate swansong for Classic Bond, Pierce Brosnan's fourth and final big screen outing is a mess of unrealised potential, clumsy anniversary references and...

Alex and James offer a belated tribute to Sir Roger Moore, reflecting on his time at James Bond as well as some of the other, more unusual roles he has played. We also discuss his contributions beyond acting and our favourite memories of the legendary actor. For the second half of the episode, we read out some of the emails we've received and try to prepare ourselves for our next Bond & Beyond rev...

James and Alex are reunited with friend of the show Gez to discuss what is unquestionably the daftest entry in the entire series (though not necessarily the worst).  Recording in our guest's London-based Bond Villian-style headquarters, we discuss Roger Moore's fourth Bond outing in extensive detail: from the opening parachute sequence to the lengthy and often laughable space sequences that make u...

Join us for an unusually negative Bond & Beyond Review as we embark upon the fourth round of this classic series. This time Alex and James are joined by friend of the show and GameBurst co-host Gary 'Xantiriad' Blower to discuss Thunderball. Touching briefly upon the well-documented legal dispute that this film triggered between Ian Fleming, EON Productions and director Kevin McClory, we ponder wh...

Here it is, at long last: the Bond & Beyond review of Skyfall, Daniel Craig's third outing as 007. Alex and James discuss the many highs and occasional lows of Skyfall, as well as the many pressures it faced: following the flawed Quantum of Solace and, of course, marking the 50th anniversary of this great franchise. This episode also weighs up the new director, new composer, new MI6, and new direc...

The Bond & Beyond Review tackles the final 007 adventure of the 20th Century. Join Alex and James as they finally start to disagree on something: Denise Richards. They also weigh up Brosnan's third performance as Bond and whether it makes up for his crumbling English accent, and discuss the film's Action-Sex quota, where every ten minutes either leads to female encounters or some genuinely great s...

James Batchelor and Alex Boucher track down the early screen treatment for what would have been Timothy Dalton's third Bond film: an adventure that takes 007 to Hong Kong in pursuit of a cat burglar who may be the key to investigating mysterious disasters at power plants and industrial facilities. For this episode, we tried something a little different. The first half is an audiobook-style narrati...

Alex and James are joined by returning guest Gez to discuss arguably Roger Moore's greatest outing as 007. When a nutter with barely noticeable webbed hands plans to start a nuclear war between the US and Russia, apparently the only hope for humanity will be to move under the sea. That is, unless James Bond and KGB agent Anya Amasova can distract themselves from trying to both sleep with and kill...

The Bond & Beyond Review comes to perhaps the most classic film of them all. Alex and James discuss Goldfinger, Sean Connery's third adventure and the source of so many 007 tropes - and parodies. While we might not tackle it in the most sensible order, everything is here: the laser table, the car, the golden girl, the song, the golf game, the raid on Fort Knox, Pussy Galore and the villainous Gold...

The Bond & Beyond Review takes an in-depth look at Daniel Craig's second outing at 007 – a film beset by problems, not the least of which were the 2008 Writer's Strike and the burden of following the acclaimed Casino Royale. Alex and James discuss how frantic camerawork, a stunning visual style, a surprisingly clever plot, an underrated Bond girl and a weedy Frenchman make this a far more impressi...

In our longest Bond & Beyond review yet, we revisit Pierce Brosnan's second adventure in which a mad media mogul brings the globe to the brink of war - to, er, sell some newspapers. Arguably one of the weaker entries in the series, there's still a lot to like here and it remains James' personal favourite. Listen in as he and Alex discuss the incredible action sequences, surprisingly engaging chara...

The Bond & Beyond Review turns its attention to what many consider to be the black sheep of the Classic 007 family. Timothy Dalton's second and (sadly) final outing as Ian Fleming's iconic secret agent sees him defying Queen and country to settle a personal vendetta with notorious drug lord Franz Sanchez. Is this just another generic '80s action film donning Bond's tuxedo, or the foundations for t...