Bond and Beyond

Bond and Beyond

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Alison Kerr

A concert celebrating the music of the James Bond movies sounded a terrific idea - a view shared by the hundreds of punters who took a break from their Christmas shopping on Sunday in order to escape into the glamorous world of movie espionage.

With the Concert Hall lights dimmed to seduction levels, the stage appeared to be set for a slick and sexy concert - and, initially, that's what we got, until the second half when the penny dropped that no Bond song was going to be left unperformed and that little editing had been deployed in the putting together of the programme, which lasted as long as Skyfall. And let's face it, not every Bond song stands the test of time as well as Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever or Live and Let Die.

This concert highlighted the dodgy lyrics of some of the early Bond songs - when the movie title had to be the song title too. You had to feel sorry for singer Tim Howar who drew the short straw song-wise, getting lumbered with such clunkers as Thunderball and You Know My Name, while the impressive Louise Dearman got her teeth into the big Bassey ballads and the terrific Nobody Does It Better.

A trio of instrumental medleys of themes from TV crime series through the decades provided name-that-tune style entertainment and showcased some great playing by the Scottish Concert Orchestra, the personnel of which was not listed in the £3.50 programmes which gave full details of the band for the programme's London concerts instead. Frankly, less Bond and more Beyond would have made this a better balanced concert.