The Villain
Emily Knight celebrates 60 years of James Bond on the big screen, with an alternative cast of Bond characters... from the animal kingdom. It's the turn of the Bond Villain.
The name's Bond. James Bond. Everyone's favourite spy has been serving up the guns, the glamour, the girls and the gadgets on the silver screen for 60 years, and we're celebrating... In a slightly unusual way. Emily Knight is taking the iconic characters from the Bond world and re-casting them, from the animal kingdom. Which of our animal cousins would make the best 007? Who do we cast as the Bond Girl? In nature, who comes equipped with the best gadgets? Who are villains, bent on world domination, and who are the henchmen, just following orders?
In this episode, come into the secret volcano lair, while we lay the most dastardly (and convoluted) of plans... it's the Bond Villain. Evil is pretty clear-cut in the Bond world: Look for obvious facial scars, a wicked-sharp dress sense and an unexplained yearning for world domination. But evil in the animal kingdom is a little harder to put your finger on. Plenty of animals have a violent, vicious and downright nasty ways of getting what they want, but they're only trying to live, after all; do animals have a sense of morality? Are there good-guys and bad-guys within animal societies? Can any of them be described as 'evil'?
With Bond expert Ian Kinane from the University of Roehampton, and Mark Rowlands from the University of Miami.
Presented and Produced in Bristol by Emily Knight
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Broadcasts
- Wed 19 Oct 2022 13:45Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- Thu 29 Dec 2022 00:15Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4