“It was very impressive that they got the Queen to do that,” says Stephen Hall dryly. Hall is one half of the creative team behind Bond-A-Rama!, a comedic celebration of the most famous member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. “And you could tell it was her because she was wearing the same dress later. Why wouldn’t it be the 85-year-old Monarch? I can’t think why they’d try and deceive us like that.”
So the old cowboy switch with Lil’ Queenie is out, but it’s definitely the type of visual trickery on the cheap that Hall and fellow writer Michael Ward lean on for Bond-A-Rama!. Enlisting the skills of comedic performers Emily Taheny (Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell) and Ben Anderson (Skithouse) to recreate all 22 Bond films – dames, villains, gadgets and daring escapes – into a lean 75 minutes, sparing every expense. It’s exactly because the world of Bond and the ever-present tropes are widely recognised that makes it ripe for parody, although Ward and Hall go at length to do it in their own special way.
“It’s a fine line we take, we refer to it as an affectionate pisstake, because we are huge fans,” explains Hall, “Also, it has been done a lot before us from Get Smart to Austin Powers, the spy genre parody road has been travelled before – and sometimes the Bond films don’t take themselves seriously and joke about themselves all the time,” he explains. I avoided adding Archer, the latest attempt at satirising the international-man-of-mystery-that’s-also-an-overconfident-asshole shtick to the list, but you could do worse things in your life than check out that brilliant show.
“Having said that, it is an out and out comedy show, and from the opening gun barrel sequence, which we recreate with limited budget and resources, it’s on. Spoiler alert, we don’t actually have the same budget as the films – we couldn’t afford a tank or semi-trailer full of Perrier – but part of the fun of it is recreating the effects with a couple of office chairs and some torn up paper.”
The brainchild of long time writing buddies Ward and Hall, Bond-A-Rama! played to packed houses at its first running last year. Surmising that they had tapped into something particularly special, the duo have built on the 2011 performances with a handful of new sketches and even a cameo from George Lazenby. Despite unarguably being labelled ‘the rubbish Bond’ for his turn in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, getting one of the few people from the exclusive club of men who have donned the 007 Saville Row suit is a pretty major coup.
“It’s more a refinement of last year’s show than an entirely new one, but the whole show is a bit more streamlined I think,” Hall offers. “And we were lucky enough to secure an exclusive video from George Lazenby, we managed to track him down through one of those friend of a friend type situations. This year it’s more sharp and funnier, at least we hope so!”
Even now as I’m writing, the opening shot that we know so well is playing over in my head – the silhouette of Bond walking across the screen, stared down by a gun barrel – is playing on repeat in my mind. Of course, in my mind Bond is a pixelated series of triangles because of Goldeneye 64, but big whoop. We’re all victims of nostalgia. The Bond-A-Rama! crew have taken this collective knowledge and turned into something that is part tribute, part silliness.
“We set out to create crowd-pleasing entertainment, and Bond works because it’s so vast, most people in the world know who he is. Even if you’re not that familiar with the film, you can grab a handful of moments or characters, it’s just a fun thing to explore.
“The other great challenge is distilling 50 years of Bond movies into an hour and a bit, but that keeps the pace up. All four performers take on multiple roles, there’s always something happening. We do manage to pull off an underwater fight and a ski chase and the scene from Moonraker where Bond and Jaws fall out of a plane without parachutes”.
Wait, does that just look like two guys hugging on the floor with a fan offstage?
“No, but that’s a pretty good idea, we didn’t think of that!” says Stephen with a laugh. “We came at it from another angle, but I might take that on board for next time.”
Much like the scores of nameless uniformed henchmen that meet their demise with a flippant pull of Bond’s trigger, my contribution was small, but I’m glad I make a difference.
BY MITCHELL ALEXANDER
