For your ears only, a radio homage to Ian Fleming

The centenary of the birth of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, is to be marked with a season of BBC radio programmes starting this month - reports The Times.

The Radio 4 tributes include an all-star dramatisation of Dr. No, a documentary in which Fleming’s niece discovers more about her uncle, and an exploration of what Bond’s creation says about postEmpire Britain.

Toby Stephens and David Suchet star in the first full radio adaptation of Dr. No, the 1958 Bond novel. Others in the cast are Samuel West, John Standing, Martin Jarvis and Peter Capaldi.

In The Bond Correspondence, Lucy Fleming, sets out to learn more about the uncle she remembered only vaguely. After delving into dusty old boxes to read the wealth of correspondence from readers, and his responses, she discovers a lesser-known side to him.

She goes inside the old Naval Intelligence Unit where Fleming worked in the Second World War, and visits his wartime girlfriend, Joan Bright Astley, and his stepdaughter, Fionn Morgan.

David Cannadine argues that the Bond novels are a fantastical response to the moment when Britain lost an Empire and was struggling to find a role in the new world.

There will also be another chance to hear Amis, Amis and Bond, in which Martin Amis explores his father Kingsley’s obsessive interest in Bond and the writing of Fleming, with the help of fellow enthusiast Charlie Higson.

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