Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens

by David Mitchell

I wasn’t expecting to find out what happened to James Bond in the end. He’s not real. He doesn’t have to end. Or begin. There’s no need to make those things part of the story. So imagine my surprise, when tentatively venturing out to the cinema in post-lockdown London for the relaxing escapism of a Bond movie, at finding myself (spoiler alert) watching that character die. I was fucking furious. I’d looked forward to that night out. We’d been to Pizza Express first. We’d had popcorn and chocolate buttons brought to our seats at a swanky cinema. And then, at the very end of No Time to Die, James Bond is killed in an explosion. Yes, he actually dies. In the middle of a pandemic when death was feeling really unoriginal. I’m sorry if this is where you’re finding that out but it’s one of the most extraordinary creative missteps that Hollywood money has ever been lavished on. James Bond not dying is the premise of a Bond film. It’s the premise of the whole franchise. What you are supposed to watch and enjoy is the exciting manner in which he does not die. The fact that a movie that departs from this sound convention was deemed by many reviewers to be clever or interesting or dark or real – to be, in summary, good and indeed better than the ones where he doesn’t die – is an index of how mediocre, joyless and self-importantly worthy our commentariat has become. Honestly, the whole creative team right up to Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig need to be lined up against a wall and cri...