Radio Bond

James Bond fever is running high in the UK, as we approach the 100th anniversary of author Ian Fleming’s birth on May 28. This coming Saturday, BBC Radio 4 will broadcast a new, extended dramatization of Dr. No, Fleming’s first Bond adventure. As The Guardian reports:

The drama, which airs on May 24, will also star Samuel West, John Standing, Martin Jarvis and Peter Capaldi.

It is part of a season of Radio 4 programmes about the author, including a documentary, The Bond Correspondence, following Fleming’s niece Lucy on a journey to find out more about her uncle. She goes inside the old Naval Intelligence Unit where her uncle worked in the Second World War, and visits his wartime girlfriend Joan Bright Astley, and stepdaughter Fionn Morgan. The season also features James Bond, The Last Englishman, an exploration of what Bond tells us about post-imperial Britain.

More information about the background and broadcast times of those two documentaries can be found here. These shows can all be listened to online at the time of their broadcasting, or accessed through the Radio 4 archives for one week thereafter.

Meanwhile, the London Times is doing its bit to celebrate Fleming’s centenary by giving away Bond novels. Full details can be found here.

READ MORE: “The Female Instinct,” by J. Kingston Pierce (The Rap Sheet); “Fleming’s Pornography,” by Linda L. Richards (The Rap Sheet); “When Giants Meet,” by J. Kingston Pierce (The Rap Sheet).