Bond? James Bond? Nope, it's James Norton in McMafia

McMafia starring James Norton made its debut on the BBC in the UK this weekend. Those of us in the US will have to wait for sometime “later this year’’ to see the series based on Misha Glenny’s nonfiction book about a Russian crime family on Amazon or AMC. 

In the meantime friends across the pond are debating the Bond-worthiness of Norton while the hunk himself (he can’t help it) insists that McMafia is NOT, I repeat NOT, an audition to play 007. Rather than a suave secret service agent, the character he plays (Alex Godman) is the son of exiled Russian mobsters, who himself ends up becoming more and more involved in the world of organized crime.

James Norton told the Daily Mail 

“The beauty of the writing is that it’s not villains and heroes’’ & that McMafia has more in common with The Godfather. ‘‘We talked a lot about Michael Corleone in The Godfather, because we had a sort of similar premise.’’

I asked my friend Maisie @yahyah56 who watched it on the “beebs’’ what she thought about the Bond possibility. 

Here’s what she said.

“The physique, hand made suits, sheer wealth, Russian villains. He looks suave and Bond like. The location shots are to die for. My cup of tea!’’

Sounds like it will be mine too. If you still don’t know who James Norton is, he was the brooding Prince Andrei in War & Peace, psycho Tommy in Happy Valley, the conflicted crime-solving minister in Grantchester and Darcy in the television adaptation of PD James Death Comes to Pemberley, which, woe to me, I haven’t read or seen, but I know is based on the beloved characters from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. (Why haven't I seen it? I don’t have a bloody clue!)

McMafia also stars David Strathairn and Juliet Rylance and is coming to America ... sometime this year.