JAMES, YOU REALLY ARE A DOUBLE- 0H-SEVEN!
His NAME is Norton, James Norton. And in a certain light, his starring role as Alex Godman in the new BBC1 gangster drama McMafia could be viewed as one long, testosterone-tastic audition to play the next Bond. Wham, bam, he’s got a plan, ma’am.
in the very first scene of the eight-part series, Alex climbs out of a taxi in a dinner jacket and a bow tie. He is seething with suave, heaving with immaculately tailored muscle; booted, suited and ready for anything the world of espionage can throw at him.
Look at him. Barely 007 seconds have passed and already he is parking his tux on James Bond’s lawn.
in a scene that follows, Alex and his heroic torso emerge from the sea clad only in trunks, like sean Connery in Thunderball and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. There is absolutely no plot reason for Alex to get his kit off. He only does so to establish his virility and tough-guy credentials. Viewers are tacitly invited to sit back and admire his human Bondage — and it would be churlish not to comply.
Norton’s character is the son of a Russian mafia boss who was exiled to London. Public school- educated, he now works in the hedge-fund industry and is determined to escape his family’s history, but — like Bond — remains haunted by his past.
We soon learn that — stop me if this sounds familiar — Alex is capable of beating up baddies, is an expert in the more obscure martial arts and has the grooming standards one would expect of an international man of mystery. Who the heck cuts his hair every night? A battalion of elves with miniature precision lawnmowers?
Norton also has that Bondian cufflink twiddle down pat, he tweaks his jacket button like 007 and takes complicated instructions over the phone with the same resolute expression. Fruity ladies queue up to grab his big, handsome head and press their lips on his, whether he wants them to or not.
Lastnight, in episode two, there was even a cheeky Bond in-joke when Alex attended a glamorous party.
‘Martini, sir?’ asked a waiter, proffering a tray. Alex just shook his head and stared into the middle distance, the ghost of a smirk on his lips. Yet despite this knowing wink to the Bond franchise and the spy’s favourite tipple, is James Norton really the right man to step into 007’s shoes?
The poor bloke, no doubt tired of endless spy speculation, has said he is ‘ personally very thankful that Daniel Craig is going to do at least one more film — or maybe a few’. He’s certainly not as grateful as me.
While Norton was wonderful as Prince Andrei in War And Peace and convincing as psychopath Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley, isn’t he too darned nice to be 007? Does he have the charisma to take him all the way to Miss Moneypenny and back?
Craig has a chip of ice in his heart and a villainous swagger, the requisite frostiness of a special agent never far from the surface of his portrayal. i worry that once abroad in the Thunderpussy world of women such as Honey Ryder and Christmas Jones coming but once a year, that our man would end up being like that soppy vicar he plays in Grantchester.
Bond breaks hearts the way other men break breadsticks. James Norton would be writing poetry, cupping their faces in his hands and saying: ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’
That is before we have considered the hair. Dye another day? Norton has been through the ginger spectrum, from autumn glow to Anne Robinson and nothing has looked quite right, spy wise. And while he wears exactly the same satin-faced, peaked lapel dinner jacket as Bond, no self-respecting spy would be seen dead in a pre-tied bow tie.
Yet for this young actor, for the moment, there is no escape. We’ve been expecting you, Mr Norton.