Stir & shake things up with a new 007?

Search for the next James Bond is reportedly approaching its final act, with the chisel-cheeked Callum Turner (Fantastic Beasts; War & Peace) and Jack 'Hair-Flop' Lowden (Slow Horses) among those preparing for screen tests. Director Denis Villeneuve must now decide which gentleman should inherit the licence to kill, seduce, and drive an Aston Martin through weekend markets.

But should Bond remain a gentleman at all? A female 007 would certainly detonate the anti-woke brigade, whose members regard changing the sex of a fictional agent-assassin of a declined Western power as a greater threat to Western civilisation than even immigrants. But outrage could provide Amazon MGM several billion dollars' worth of free publicity. One can already hear anguished cries of 'Bond, James Bondage!'

Merely putting a woman in a tux, and having her order vodka martinis would be a meh gaze. The next Bond needs overhaul, not hormonal substitution.


She should be ruthless, funny, sexually adventurous, morally ambiguous and spectacularly competent. In other words, precisely what Bond has always been, with 'Bond boys' a la Daniel Craig coming out of the sea in Ursula Andress' footsteps. After six decades of men saving the world, giving Jane Bond the assignment could work. And even if it fails with a Disney thump, we would still have Double-O shaken and stirred.