Licence To Queer

In this informal chat (while they make Sunday lunch and cocktails), Licence to Queer creator David and his husband Antony reflect on the previous month and all the Bond-related things they have experienced. It's been a busy month! Discussion includes developments in 007GB Club (David is the Editor, Antony a member), the re-release of GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo Switch and Xbox, booking tickets to a Japanese staging of Casino Royale, a(nother) visit to Dukes in London, a sleeper train visit to Edinburgh supporting the release of Bond author Kim Sherwood's new book and the third international Jim Fanning Friday. They finish with a chat about the Bond tangential stuff they've consumed, including an appearance from Pierce Brosnan in 80s X-Men comics and Bond Girl Martine Beswick's appearance in a Hammer Horror film.

This month's cocktail is a 'Honey Ryder', a classic daiquiri with Blackwell's rum, substituting sugar syrup with honey.

Diamonds Are Forever may be one of the more bizarre Bond films but the early drafts by Richard Maibaum make the finished film look quite sane by comparison! Granted access to the Eon archives, film scholar Tom Mason shared with me what he had uncovered: possible versions of Diamonds Are Forever which are, by turns, ahead of their time AND positively deranged. You're not going to believe what Diamonds might have been!

We always wanted to have Christmas in Cuba! On the final full day of our holiday, we look back on the experiences we've had in Havana over the Christmas period, make several Bond connections and share some of the funny things that have happened along the way.

There's no intro or fancy editing for this episode as it was a nightmare just getting the computer to work in any way with the state wi-fi. So it's just the audio, recorded from the balcony of our hotel overlooking the sea.

No shade, but is M's death supposed to be... funny?!

Severine has attracted a great deal of attention from academics writing about James Bond, with many finding the character to be a regressive step for the series’ portrayal of female characters. But she is one of the most appealing elements of the film for many queer viewers. Although she is undoubtedly a tragic character, subject to the whims of a succession of men, she is not entirely disempowered.

Like Bond, Silva was once a blunt instrument: something to be wielded by the British Establishment but without ever being admitted to the Establishment himself. Also like Bond, Silva is haunted by his past. However, the similarities run out of road here… In the absence of a chosen family like the one Bond has, something has steadily eaten away at Silva - and I’m not just talking about cyanide.

We all face societal pressure to prioritise relationships with blood relations over relationships with people to who we aren’t genetically connected. But, for some of us, this is not desirable or, as in Bond’s case, possible.

Even so, Bond is never truly alone.

If Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is to be believed, there's no place like home. But what if that home is Skyfall? In his 50th anniversary queer odyssey, 00-Dorothy doesn’t just kick back against traditional notions of home and family; along the way he creates a unconventional family to replace the one he lost and blows up his childhood abode with dynamite. Talk about cathartic!

60 years ago, when the movie Bond began, England’s most popular actor was Dirk Bogarde, a closeted gay man. Dirk was even approached to play Bond. But big Bogarde fan Callum McKelvie is glad the matinee idol never donned 007’s tux (although he would have looked great in it).  

Check out Callum's article at www.licencetoqueer.com