Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It only takes a second for the iconic theme tune to get underway before you realise just how much music from the James Bond series of films means to the collective conscious of the enormous crowd at the Philharmonic Hall and the wider world.
Whether you watch the films in the privacy of your own home or in amongst the massed thrall at your local cinema, one of the key ingredients that makes the film such a blistering event is the score, the musical prelude that heightens up the tension and gives the audience the prickly sensation of what is in store for M.I.5’s greatest ever spy.
As part of the Summer Pops, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, inspiringly conducted by the sartorially elegant Carl Davis, performed selected tracks from the 50 years and 23 films that have graced the screens and thrilled millions of fans world-wide. From the unique signature tune composed by Monty Norman through to the backbone of the films such as Shirley Bassey delivering perhaps the finest and most memorable performances of her long industrious career in the theme to Goldfinger, the Paul McCartney and Wings timeless contribution in the 1973 debut for Roger Moore in Live and Let Die and Garbage’s stunning track The World Is Not Enough.
Carl Davis kept the orchestra fulfilled throughout the evening, giving just the right amount of scope, the free range to really hammer home just how important and entrenched the films are into cinematic history but keeping them under the rigid professionalism you would expect from perhaps the leading exponent of his craft.
With Mark Moraghan on stage to give a narrative interlude and sing some of the incredible music offered by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, this was a night for fans to relish, to believe they could be the man in the tuxedo ordering the drink, beating spectre and Blofeld at their own game or the companion, in danger, trapped but ultimately rescued by the secret agent man.
Even if you have never been to see a full orchestra perform, it is this type of evening which becomes an excellent introduction to the world of classical music.
Ian D. Hall