Here we are, with Andy Burnham, yet another new prime minister, settling into the job. Yet the nation’s most important vacancy remains unfilled.
Because we still don’t know who will be the next James Bond.
Auditions are reportedly taking place, and thank God, because the race for 007 is now more exhausting than a general election.
In the five years – and five – PMs since Daniel Craig exploded at the end of No Time To Die, almost every actor under 40 with cheekbones who has ever been in sipping distance of a martini has been mentally shoved into Bond’s dinner jacket.
But it’s now time to place your chips.
Odds-on favourite is still Callum Turner.
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At 36, Turner is masculine, romantic, bruised, not too polished and has old-fashioned movie-star heft.
His recent marriage to singer Dua Lipa even dangles the possibility of a two-for-one deal on the Bond theme tune – but it could prove a liability. Bond should look capable of breaking your heart, not politely thanking you for the Le Creuset wedding gift.
This is where Harris Dickinson has an edge.
At 30, he’s young by Bond standards, though Sean Connery was only 31.
Dickinson has a dangerous, chameleonic quality on screen – we can never forget him commanding Nicole Kidman to lap milk from a saucer in Babygirl.
He could survive Bond typecasting because you never quite know what he’ll do next. Except we do. He’s playing John Lennon across Sam Mendes’ four-film Beatles project, which ties up his diary.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson once seemed such a dead cert that reports claimed the job was practically his. That was 2024.
The silence since suggests incoming director Denis Villeneuve may have other ideas.
Taylor-Johnson also feels like the Bond we have already had – handsome, muscular, brooding.
After Daniel Craig, we don’t really need another 007 who looks as though he wakes up furious with his personal trainer.
Jacob Elordi is mesmerising on screen.
But I see the Saltburn and Wuthering Heights star less as Bond, more as a Bond villain’s beautiful son, smoking beside an infinity pool, quoting Nietzsche and ruining everybody’s marriage. He is also Australian.
After George Lazenby, shortest-serving Bond in history, Britain may not be emotionally prepared to take that risk again.
Then there is Tom Francis. You might wonder ‘Tom Who?’ but that’s exactly the point.
An Olivier-winning stage actor, Francis has the advantage of being a blank canvas. And the thrill of the unknown may be precisely what the franchise needs.
Because the billion-dollar question isn’t who should play James Bond, it’s what do we actually want James Bond to be today? Every successful Bond reflected the fantasy of his era.
My favourite, Sean Connery, was animal masculinity and danger. He did not merely look good in a tux, he made the tux look nervous.
Roger Moore offered debonair silliness. Timothy Dalton brought too much seriousness. Pierce Brosnan was a glossy, walking Bond poster. Daniel Craig was Ian Fleming’s ‘blunt instrument’ made flesh, a Bond who bled, grieved and fell apart.
All were unmistakably Bond, while making the familiar feel fresh. And there’s so much that has to stay the same in a Bond film: the tux, the Aston Martin, the gun barrel, the martinis, Q, M, Moneypenny and the Bond girls.
But brand recognition alone is no longer enough.
The decline of the superhero machine and the underwhelming response to Disney’s live-action remakes suggest audiences want more. Bond cannot simply return to cinemas. He has to justify doing so.
Amazon reportedly paid around $1billion for total creative control of the franchise.
The new creative team is formidable – Dune director Villeneuve, Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight, producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman. If anyone can make the old rituals thrilling again, it should be them.
But Judi Dench’s M was already calling Bond a ‘sexist, misogynist dinosaur’ nearly 30 years ago. Perhaps the dinosaur has finally earned his straight-to-streaming retirement on Amazon Prime.
Which brings me to Bill Nighy. It’s fun to briefly picture him as Old Bond with his dry wit, intelligence, suavity, mystery, and immaculate tailoring.
This is an actor who could suggest an entire history of romantic disappointment simply by adjusting one cuff. I’d watch that spinoff tomorrow.
But for Bond 26, I’d vote for a total unknown.
Because above all, a new James Bond has to make us feel that old jolt of danger, glamour and possibility. The fantasy that, for two hours, life will become faster, sharper and infinitely more exciting.
A name we already know carries too much baggage. What Bond needs is someone who walks into frame and makes us think, ‘Oh. It’s him. We just didn’t know it yet.’
Whoever gets the job, there is only one thing I’m prepared to put money on. It won’t be Andy Burnham.
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