Richard Osman teases James Bond Easter egg and promises The Thursday Murder Club will "keep going for many years to come"

But last week Osman arrived at Kew with a different purpose: to attend a special ‘In Conversation With’ event hosted by Radio Times.

Two weeks before, Netflix’s adaptation of his best-selling crime thriller, The Thursday Murder Club, took the streaming service by storm, packing out UK cinemas and sending the film to the top of the streaming charts.

Although he would be the first to point out that he didn’t write the film, Osman is every bit the man of the moment, and fans clutching books, joined 750 lucky Radio Times readers, on a slightly soggy – the heatwave having finally broken – Thursday afternoon to catch a glimpse of the man himself, for an autograph, for a photo, and to take part in a quiz hosted by Osman and his Pointless friend Alexander Armstrong.

Before the quizzing began, Osman took to the stage for an In Conversation interview with Radio Times's TV editor Caroline Frost. No stranger to the thunderous Heathrow flightpath, Osman had the audience laughing every time he identified a plane roaring overhead (‘British Airways… Delta… Virgin Atlantic’).

After spilling the beans on his near 40-year career in television (including some not-to-be-repeated tales about which guests caused the most pain on Pointless Celebrities), talk turned to the residents of Cooper’s Chase.

Now that Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim have been translated into a hit feature film, it was surprising to hear that Osman didn’t hear the voices of Celia Imrie, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley intrude on his imagination as he writes.

“The thing is, I know who the characters are,” he said. “So for me, it's like Helen Mirren and Celia Imrie were playing them in a reconstruction. They're real. I know who they are. I don't know what they look like, but I certainly know how they feel.”

However, the casting of one particular Hollywood star did inspire Osman to slip a knowing reference into his latest book, The Impossible Fortune, which hits bookshops on 25th September.

“In the new book, the only thing I thought was, ‘I have to put some little kind of Easter egg in the new book.’ So, there's a scene in which Ron and Ibrahim discuss their favourite James Bond. And Ron's favourite James Bond is Pierce Brosnan. And Ibrahim's favourite James Bond is Timothy Dalton, by the way.”

The audience discovered that one storyline, in particular, is a nod to his own family’s experience. “There's a big dementia storyline that goes through the first four books [Elizabeth’s husband Stephen – played by Sir Jonathan Pryce in the film – has dementia].

“My granddad suffered from dementia in his later years. If you talk to anyone with any experience of dementia, everyone's experience is different. Everyone's experience is individual, but you hope there are some universalities. I just wanted to talk about my grandfather's experience.

“And one of my favourite things about the writing the book is that people come up to me and talk to me about the dementia in their family, and talk to me about their experience, and thank me for writing it in the way that I did. Which, hopefully, because it was very personal, has some universal appeal as well.”

The success of the smash hit film hasn’t interrupted Osman’s writing routine, which sees him write 1,500 words two hours a day on whichever book is in hand. Although like many an author, he confesses he requires the discipline of a deadline to deliver, with a new book (roughly 90,000 words) being published every September, alternating each year between The Thursday Murder Club and his other series, We Solve Murders.

Is he currently on course to deliver his next manuscript for May? It appears so, although he likened the experience to sitting down to do your homework at 7.30pm on a Sunday evening.

The good news is that any fan worried about the series coming to a premature end can relax. “The characters are getting older, but I think that's okay,” he explained.

“You might have to allow me that they don't age as quickly as they should do. The idea of writing a series where everyone's in their late 70s... I didn't really think that through. But John le Carré brought back George Smiley when he was about 109 or something. So, so long as we all suspend our disbelief, then I'll keep going for many years to come.”

Which is no surprise. As it sounds like his characters have become old friends.

“I came back to them after a year this time. And I just thought, ‘My God, they haven't even begun the things they want to do and they want to say’.

“So far, the people who have read [book 5, The Impossible Fortune] say it's the best one. Which is lovely. I'll keep writing them, I guess, until it gets to the point where all of us together go, ‘Maybe something else? Maybe we do something new now.’ I'm usually quite good at working out when that point is, but I haven't reached it yet.

“There's definitely this new one and another one. And my guess is there'll be many more to come.”

The fifth Thursday Muder Club book, The Impossible Fortune, launches 25th September and you can order your copy now. The Thursday Murder Club film is available now on Netflix.

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