Royal Albert Hall, 19th November 2022

Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as 007 gets the Films in Concert treatment…

It doesn’t really matter what film is presented in concert with a live orchestra. The monumental achievement it takes to stage these technical events is something of a minor miracle.

It’s the Albert Hall, it’s a live orchestra, it’s a movie. Sound and vision travel at different speeds and both have to hit all parts of an oddly shaped arena which, let’s be honest, has a lot of acoustic issues itself, with all the precision of Goldfinger’s laser. This is no mean feat.

Full plaudits go to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Anthony Gabriele. They deserved the standing ovation at the end. Gabriele clearly relished the performance with a relaxed conducting style, full of the kind of personality and style which would be worthy of 007 himself. The scale of the event didn’t phase him or the orchestra.

That said, 2015’s ‘Spectre’ is something of an odd choice given the focus is on the soundtrack. With this film, composer Thomas Newman became only the third person in the franchise’s 60 year history to get a second shot at scoring a James Bond film. So it’s odd that he chose to mainly cherry pick main themes he had written for ‘Skyfall’, making this something of a bastardised score rather than a bespoke effort.

There is a big wow straight out of the traps as the iconic Bond theme is blasted out to the accompaniment of the famous gunbarrel, back at the beginning of a Bond outing for the first time since 2002’s ‘Die Another Day’ and, it has to be said, where it belongs. Sticking it on at the end for the previous two films – I’ll allow ‘Casino Royale’; that made sense – just didn’t work no matter how much it can be explained away in the narrative. Feeling its impact in a live concert setting only cements how important it is in framing a James Bond film, and it’s the significance of it, along with other tropes, that separates Bond from other action movies.

‘Spectre’ may not be considered a classic in the series, but it delivers some seriously big punches. The pre-title sequence is a cracker. One long take following 007 through Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City to heart thumping salsa beats played expertly by the resident orchestra, culminating in a thrilling helicopter fight and a ‘Bond saves the day’ moment in which Newman very wisely stings the Bond theme at the vital moment. (Other composers have missed such opportunities in the past, ref. Eric Serra: ‘GoldenEye’) The audience in the arena didn’t hide their joy. Although some of the film’s sound seemed to have been oddly dulled down in the mix during the fight scene, it’s still an exciting moment.

This film certainly doesn’t have a classic song. Writer and singer Sam Smith proudly boasted that he wrote ‘Writing’s on the Wall’ in 15 minutes, and boy it sure does sound like it. It has some majestic and sweeping strings but not enough to hide its fundamental weakness as a title song. In fact, it’s not even a title song, makes me wonder if Smith realises that spectre is actually a word in the English language.

Despite the fact that the film takes us on a location fest in true Bond style, careering from Rome (why has Bond never been before?) to Austria to Tangier and back to London, it all has a slightly pedestrian feel. And sadly, so does the music.

The chase in the Austrian alps as Bond pursues a Spectre motorcade through alpine forests in a plane is exciting enough and there’s a classic Bond fight on a train, done many times before with lots of references to previous such encounters. And there are lots of similar references peppered throughout, ranging from mountain top clinics (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) to Spectre leadership meetings with gruesome deaths (Thunderball) but it never seems enough to save ‘Spectre’ from mediocrity. Even Blofeld can’t save the day. Christoph Waltz doesn’t quite hit the mark and boy does Daniel Craig’s Bond have a habit of falling full on in love with women he’s only known for ten minutes. Lea Seydoux is great, but the relationship doesn’t really land.

And for all that, the musical score is the same. Never quite hitting the high mark that we expect from a Bond score. At the end, it was all still very satisfying because frankly, live music is the best and a full live orchestra of the standard of the Royal Philharmonic offer up enough to have the audience, myself included, compelled to rise to our feet at the conclusion.

Oddly, the promoters made a decision to eschew the end credits in favour of a holding ident so that we could focus on an utterly fabulous rendition of Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme (arranged by John Barry). And that was the slight sense of want I felt at the end. Surely this set up is begging for a screening of a film with a classic Barry score? ‘You Only Live Twice’ or the aforementioned ‘OHMSS’ perhaps. Do they feel that the older Bonds wouldn’t have enough audience pull? I disagree, what this audience clearly wanted was iconic Bond, so let’s get some more please.

Verdict: A thoroughly enjoyable event that elevated a slightly above average James Bond film to a higher level. Congratulations are deserved for that.

7/10 for the film; 8/10 for the orchestra and event.

Charlie McKenzie