Dashing through the snow… that’s Mr Norton
Well, that’s what Mummy’s getting in her stocking sorted out. James Norton. Oh, I see, he’s just on the telly. Pity. But what a treat it will be on New Year’s Eve to see Norton getting out of a black cab in a tuxedo like the first red-haired James Bond. Mcmafia,
the BBC’S new drama in which Norton plays a banker of Russian descent trying to escape his family’s legacy of crime and violence, looks set to fill the considerable gap left by The Night Manager
and Tom Hiddleston’s behind.
How quickly Norton has assumed the mantle of our finest leading man. From the chilling thug Tommy Lee Royce in Happy
Valley, via that lovely, tortured vicar Sidney in Grantchester
to a brooding Prince Andrei in War and Peace, he never puts a foot wrong. I must admit that, increasingly, I flinch from New Year’s Eve. The turn of the calendar can feel less like an opening up of opportunity, as it did when I was young and thronging jubilantly in Trafalgar Square, and more like an unwanted reminder that Time’s winged chariot is catching me up, however much I avoid looking in the rear-view mirror.
James Norton emerging from the sea in swimming trunks will be some consolation.
This is my last appearance before Christmas and I’d like to thank you all for being such lovely readers and good companions. Although we’ve never met, I feel sustained by your many emails and letters. I hope that some of what appears in this column makes you laugh occasionally and maybe even feel less alone. Wishing you and yours a very happy Christmas. See you on the other side of Mr Norton’s trunks.