Casino Royale - James Bond on Broadway?!

For as long as I can remember, I‘ve always been a big James Bond fan. I just love the way that the stories by Sir Ian Fleming weave together danger, exotic locales, and beautiful women. I also think it’s cool how games like baccarat are made out to be so stylish and sexy. Gambling plays a large part of many of the stories, and that’s never been more true than in Casino Royale.

Since it was the biggest Bond movie of all time, you probably know that the big-screen adaptation of Casino Royale came out in 2006. What you might not know is that a stage play was written in 1985.

That’s right, it was written by one Raymond Benson, an author responsible for numerous James Bond novels, role-playing games, etc.. In 1985, the Fleming literary estate owned the stage adaptation rights of Casino Royale (the performing rights for all other Fleming novels were owned by someone else), and they asked Benson to try his hand at it.

He agreed and wrote the play in 2 to 3 months. In 1986, there was a staged reading of the play in New York, but the estate decided not to go ahead with it. What a shame, too, as the audience was quite enthusiastic by all accounts.

The reading also used professional actors. They consisted of Ed Clark as James Bond, Robert Aberdeen as Le Chiffre, Elizabeth Huffman as Vesper Lynd, and Stuart Laurence as Felix Leiter.

The play, entitled Casino Royale (A Play in Nine Scenes), was then submitted to a British theatrical agent. The agent, an elderly woman, suggested that the play not be produced, and that was that.

While Raymond owns the rights to the play, he can’t do anything with it, as others own the production and distribution rights. Most likely, it will just gather dust for years and years to come. Still, things worked out just fine for Raymond and Mr. Bond. Since that time, he has written six original Bond novels, three novelizations, and four 007 short stories.

Bond on Broadway? It makes you wonder what might have been.

Casino Royale - James Bond on Broadway?!