Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Toby Stephens, Eileen Atkins, John Sessions, Tim Pigott-Smith, Mark Gatiss, John Glover, Aileen Mowat, John Standing, Janie Dee, Julian Sands, Matthew Wolf, Olga Fedori, Micky Stratford, Nathaniel Parker, Martin Jarvis.
It could be argued that the fan and the listener alike have been short changed when it comes to adaptations of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels for the radio; whether this is down to the estate not wishing to decry from the scores of films or because it has been long thought that such books cannot be captured with just a voice rather than the dramatic sequence that film provides is for another debate, and yet there is something to be said for being able to see 007 aim his trilby at the hat stand, to see the devastation of his actions take place, rather than just match your imagination to the actor’s voice.
The 2012 radio adaption of From Russia With Love is perhaps an example of a spy story that works just as well on radio as it does on the big screen, partly down to the actual film being seen in some quarters as the weakest of Sean Connery’s films under the E-On brand in the title role but also due to the way the radio script actually utilises imagination rather than being offered the story on a plate. This is especially true in the scene where Bond and Kerim are in a narrow tunnel under the Istanbul streets and surrounded by rats, the feeling of claustrophobia, of musophobia strikes hard in the audio dramatisation, one that doesn’t have the same effect on screen.
Where From Russia With Love as a radio play truly stands out is in its honest approach in sticking the nature of the psychological nature of the book of a spy undone by his own doubts and fears and the intrigue offered in the Russian Rosa Klebb’s own damnation, her use of sexuality to maintain her own facade and dominant nature.
Whilst the film perhaps played up to the fact of Klebb’s own unpleasant features, something that really doesn’t leave the viewer with good taste, in an audio play the sense of horrid demeanour is captured by her predatory instincts, ugly in deed rather than the unfortunate use of an arbitrary physical appreciation of looks and its description of repulsiveness.
For Eileen Atkins, Rosa Klebb presents an ideal opportunity to present a woman dedicated to the cause of bringing down the reputation of Britain via one of its foremost spy’s, the cruelty, the sadistic nature of the character’s very being is extenuated beyond that portrayed by the charismatic Lotte Lenya; an unhindered and brutal addition to the story, which for a radio play works with greater sincerity than can be provided in film.
From Russia With Love suffers under the weight of history and the sense of failing to capitalise upon the brand name, on radio though its fate is different, and one that frames the British spy with greater affection than the film could muster.
Ian D. Hall