Catching ROGER

Whoever said never meet your heroes clearly never had mine as theirs. For thirty years my cinematic hero, sartorial inspiration and now literary muse was and continues to be Sir Roger Moore.

It was June 1983 when my dad took a reluctant and seven year old younger version of myself to the Guildford Odeon to see Roger Moore’s sixth Bond opus, Octopussy. It was a simple outing that put a 007 shaped stamp on my life and was the beginnings of realising the stamp James Bond had already had on the O’Connell family. Key to that was Roger Moore. Being a 1980s kid, he was my Bond. Being a 1980s cinema kid, he was crucial. Numerous posters and images flanked my walls like Broccoli frescoes and an autographed still for my ninth birthday is still the best birthday present in the world ever.

Flash-forward thirty years and not only have I written a comedy memoir about literally growing up with Bond, Catching Bullets – Memoirs of a Bond Fan (Splendid Books), but Sir Roger is appearing in his current tour An Evening With Roger Moore at a local Surrey venue, G-Live (or the Moore-quip friendly G-Spot for those who can never quite find their way round Guildford’s notoriously shocking one-way system). Organised and marshalled onstage by Roger’s manager and biographer Gareth Owen, the Autumn 2013 show is a relaxed but complete look at Roger’s career from his early days at RADA (with fellow classmates including Bond alumni Lois Maxwell) via the touchstones of The Saint, The Persuaders, The Sea Wolves, that small matter of seven 007 movies to his more recent and very sterling work for UNICEF and taking on the charity baton handed to him by friend Audrey Hepburn.

And just as a 007 who sported the best ski-wear known to man should be, Moore is a master of going off piste – taking the audience and himself along reminiscences and sharply recalled anecdotes with cute timing and that self-mocking veneer that has served him well over the years. If only all of us could even hope to be so sharply minded at 86 years young. I had never seen Moore more lucid, relaxed, quick to quip and totally poised with all that trademark saintly persuasion.

It was not wholly random and the people who I need to thank already have been, but as the highly recommendable show came to a close I was faced with the prospect of finally meeting the man himself. Should I? Maybe I shouldn’t. The man might want to quite fairly shoot off home and crack open a glass of something bubbly, no? Guildford’s fine but it is no Monaco (despite Roger remembering with mocking fondness filming an AA commercial decades there before as a young actor). Suddenly I was overcome with a paranoia – “I should leave best alone, the journey of Catching Bullets has been so wonderful and well received and an L.A. encounter with my Bond Girl was such a divine day, don’t push your luck and spoil it now O’Connell!”. But if I didn’t try I would – to badly paraphrase the film Moore circles as his finest work – become the man who haunted himself.

Cut to the back car-park of G-Live and my seven year old Bond fan self has already led my adult brain down into a Guildford car park before the auditorium had barely got to its feet amidst well deserved cheer. A chauffeured car is naturally waiting for Mr Moore as is someone’s vintage Volvo from Roger’s The Saint days, and of course some loyal fans wrapped up against the autumn cold. A wink and a nod later and my partner, our friend Pat and I are coming in out the cold towards Mr Moore’s dressing room and a friendly hive of post-show backstage activity. I don’t know if the tricky Bond mistress that we all call ‘life’ meant to add such poetry to but it suddenly hits me how right now Roger Moore and I are merely yards away from the Guildford Odeon where my Bond fan journey commenced with Octopussy. Furthermore – and due to a bout of parental house-sitting – I write this piece alongside the very childhood bedroom that was a veritable shrine to our man James, 007, Octopussy, Maud Adams and all manner of Bond-foolery. Like those little white dots mark each and every Bond movie, events do sometimes have a very curious habit of going full circle. And before I knew it I was sat in Roger’s gleaming white dressing room with the man himself looking at me with the same piercing blue eyes that fought Zorin, Drax, Scaramanga, Stromberg, Nick Nack and Jaws with the same boyish grin that bedded Solitaire, Mary Goodnight, Anya Amasova and of course both our shared favourite 007 lady, Octopussy.

Whilst the details shall remain personal (in part due to me being caught by the utter surrealism of it all and hence forgetting what the hell happened), Roger soon beckoned me into his Santa’s Grotto of suavity to sit down with my cardigan-friendly eye already on his fine knitwear and wishing I had sported mine that night. We discussed Bond, Catching Bullets and my grandfather who worked with Cubby Broccoli and who Roger would have known. I also coyly mentioned the personal symmetry of finally meeting Mr Moore a few metres from where I had seen him in my first Bond at the cinema. He wondered, “which one?”. I nervously replied, “the Odeon“.

He then kindly asked again, “no, which film…?” to which I duly responded with Octopussy-mentioning pride and embarrassment. Roger then kindly said he wants to read Catching Bullets. I jokingly hinted of course he didn’t have to at which moment those firm blue eyes suavely clarified, “oh no, I will”.

Forever a gent. Forever Bond. Forever Moore.

An Evening with Roger Moore continues round the UK.

Catching Bullets – Memoirs of a Bond Fan is available now.