Exploring our endless fascination with the world of James Bond

But in the meantime, we can spend an evening with the man who co-wrote the past seven Bond movies. An Evening with Rob Wade will be in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre on Sunday, January 12 at 7pm. Tickets are available from the CFT with all proceeds going to The Nest Appeal.

“I think the thing about James Bond is that even though he is a fantasy, there is a kind of nobility in the fact that he just keeps on fighting for what he believes in,” Rob says. “He has a very attractive conviction that what he is doing is right and as the world gets ever crazier, he is a kind of still centre for us all.

“Even though he has changed over the years in the way he has been portrayed and somehow the films have always reflected the world that we are in at that moment, I do think that there is something constant about him and I think people find that reassuring. And what the films have always striven for is to maintain a level where it is worth going to the cinema to see them. And that means that we have to try harder and harder and we have to set the highest possible standards.”

And that is another reason the films matter so much to us. A measure of their importance is the extent to which No Time to Die was seen as a potential saviour for the cinema in general as we emerged from the pandemic: “It was terrible that it had to be postponed but it was the right thing to do and then we had the wonderful evening in the Royal Albert Hall when we could watch it with people, a big event which was about opening up after Covid. William and Kate and Charles and Camilla were there, and it was great that people could have this extraordinary moment again, 4,000 people watching something communally and enjoying at last that communal experience.”

Rob had his first success alongside Neal Purvis with the screenplay for Let Him Have It. The critically acclaimed film, directed by Peter Medak, was screened for Parliament and played a part in Derek Bentley's eventual posthumous pardon.

They have gone on to work in a variety of genres with screenplays such as Plunkett & Macleane, starring Robert Carlyle and Liv Tyler, and Johnny English starring Rowan Atkinson and John Malkovich. As well as writing the James Bond films The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day, they wrote and co-produced Return To Sender for director Bille August and performed the same duties on Stoned for director Stephen Woolley.

For Casino Royale they received two BAFTA nominations as well as an EDGAR nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. They subsequently co-wrote Quantum Of Solace, Skyfall, which earned them a BAFTA for Best British Film, Spectre, and No Time To Die – the first time any individual or team had written seven consecutive James Bond films.

“Each film usually starts with sitting around chatting about what we're worried about at the moment. There's usually a couple of years’ gap and we come back together and think about what worries us and what's interesting in the world and what is worrying the world. We start with a blank page.

“But we knew the tone that we wanted for Die Another Day. That was over the top and then we felt that we needed to come back down to earth and the great thing was that we had the rights to Casino Royale and we could take the tone from that, not having Moneypenny and not having Q so that we could focus on the relationship between Bond and M. That gave us more space and made it more edgy.

“And Daniel Craig filled the role so well. He is an exceptionally good actor but he's also got a terrific physicality. He can convey intelligence as well and I just thought he was absolutely fantastic in the role. What we wanted to with this version of Bond was to show him as a younger man and show him as more of a fallible person. I think at one point Bond was almost superhuman and could do anything but the opening chase that we had in Casino Royale showed that he was not as good as the guy he was going after but he kept getting up and he kept trying.”

As for what happens next in the Bond franchise, Rob says he doesn't know – and doesn't know whether he will be involved: “I'm very happy with what we have done, and I will be very interested to see what happens next but I'm proud of having been involved. I think I was around at the right time as well. You have to have a bit of luck and it was a really good time to be involved in creating an arc for the character that we'd not really had before. And I think the films became a little bit more grown up in a way. Skyfall was the most successful one and it was interesting that it happened to coincide with the London Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee in 2012, a really good moment for Britain.”

Rob has lived in West Sussex for the past 20 years: “I actually live near Petworth but we lived for quite a long time closer to Chichester. I love the Downs, and Chichester Festival Theatre is just a fantastic resource. It is such a big boost for the area. There is such an intellectual life going on, and there is always something happening that people are talking about whether it's the latest production or what is happening season-wise. And I love what they do with the children there. I remember seeing a production that they did that went all over the Weald & Downland Museum.”

As for supporting the nest, Rob knew people including backers: “And it was fair enough that I got tapped on the shoulder!”