BOND STAR BURROWS INTO BLACK TRAGEDIES

LASHANA LYNCH, who plays the super skilled secret agent Nomi in the blockbuster Bond movie No Time To Die, went through combat of a different kind in the film she shot immediately after the 007 thriller.

The actress stars in the middle section of the screen version of writer Debbie Tucker Green’s searing play ear for eye [sic], which became a much talked about hit at the Royal Court three years ago.

Lynch was in that production, too; playing an American psychology student who’s engaged in a fierce debate with her white male professor (played by Demetri Goritsas) about the reasons behind a school shooting.

The scenes (with Goritsas also reprising his stage role) are among some of the most intensely powerful I’ve seen on screen this year.

Green’s film (she also directed) examines what Lynch called ‘the exact truth that black people experience’ — and that experience is ‘trauma’.

She added that what happened on the streets, here and in the States, over the past two years ‘has made it all the more important for us to tell these stories’.

Hats off, then, to the Royal Court, BBC Film and the British Film Institute (with help from Bond producer Barbara Broccoli) for backing Green and the film’s producer Fiona Lamptey to get the movie made.

Lamptey told me that ear for eye will have its world premiere at the London Film Festival tomorrow, at the National Film Theatre.

It will also be shown on BBC2 that night; and will be available later on BBC iPlayer.