Sean Pertwee is not James Bond

Last year, around springtime, I had a terrible temporary job in a depot. They didn't have to pay most of the staff because a portion of them committed suicide before the week was up. One morning, I was sitting in the locker room during my break wondering whether to end it all by eating a canteen breakfast or jumping out of the window when I noticed the tabloid newspapers strewn around me. Everyone in a depot reads tabloid newspapers. I like to think I'm the sort of person that doesn't, but that morning I carefully scooped them all up and stacked them next to my lukewarm vending machine drinking chocolate for one special reason: the tabloid newspapers were obsessed by the ongoing search to find the sixth James Bond actor. In the space of a few weeks they had declared Eric Bana and Dougray Scott as the new man, and I flicked through the pages to see who was the subject of this week's speculation.

Sure enough there was my article. 'Amy Pascal wants Clive Owen for Bond' said the piece. And there was the picture of Owen in a tuxedo looking suitably spiffy and Bondish. But: not so fast. On the adjoining page there was a mock-up of another actor in a tuxedo. A pasty faced man with a ginger crewcut. He looked like he'd been drooling. This was, according to the blurb, Barbara Broccoli's preferred candidate - Daniel Craig.  Very funny, I thought and turned the page to find out which soap star had been caught injecting cocaine up his arse that week.

A few days later the Craig story was confirmed over the internet. He was said to be a friend of Broccoli. Oh shit, I thought. This is actually real. As if by chance the BBC drama Archangel turned up on television soon after. I tuned in to take a look at Craig who, from memory, seemed like a truly bizarre Bond candidate. It merely confirmed my doubts. He was a bizarre candidate. If Archangel was anything to go by, Broccoli could have been legally sectioned for considering him. Not only was he the most un-Bond like chap on the planet (to the point of Eon being vulnerable to the trades descriptions act) he was also quite seriously dull.

As he disappeared from the race only to re-emerge as the favourite, I watched Some Voices, The Trench, and Tomb Raider ('I'm no good at that superhero stuff' said Craig in an interview once. On the subject of Tomb Raider which Craig slags off in several interviews as though the whole thing was beneath him, everyone did their job in that film right down to Chris Barrie as the butler. What was Craig's problem? But I digress) I still didn't get it. Daniel Craig? Who was their second choice, Max Beesley? Did Sean Pertwee price himself out of the running? I watched Craig acted off the screen by Stephen Rea in Copenhagen. Perhaps Rea should be playing James Bond. He doesn't look the part but who cares anymore right? A bargain basement British 'sort of famous but not quite, you might have seen him somewhere but you honestly won't remember where' Bond. Was Jason Flemying available? Wonder if David Morrissey would do this for some holiday vouchers and a free kettle?

Even the press looked bored when Craig was unveiled. Martin Campbell looked like he wanted to punch someone and Craig and Michael G Wilson seem to have taken some sort of sedative. Only Broccoli seemed to be enjoying herself. Nearly a year after this soporific anti-climax the rumpus over the casting still lingers. In response (a backlash causes an entrenched position. You must now actively bump up that which you seek to defend, even to ludicrous degrees and denigrate alternatives. Under this doctrine Hugh Jackman is now a crap actor and an idiot. Clive Owen is now a crap actor and an idiot. Gerard Butler is now a crap actor and an idiot. In fact everyone in the world other than Daniel Craig is now a crap actor and an idiot. I could go on but you get the general idea) CommanderBond.Net has become DanielCraig.com. On their frontpage you are invited to post a topic to show your support for Daniel Craig. That's right. Not post a subjective view on James Bond. Show your support.

Craig's brand of British thesping (see Rhys-Ifans) has been upgraded to Steve Mcqueen cool. The man who defined acting for his generation according to Barbara Broccoli. There speaks a woman who never watched Tomb Raider. Or Love Is The Devil. Craig has been announced as the best dressed man in the world by Esquire Magazine. You honestly couldn't make this stuff up. On CBN's Craig support site someone suggests that Craig will certainly win an Oscar for this film and (I'm honestly not making this up) that Time Magazine should make him man of the year. Craig is now complaining about his action figure looking sullen. Does this man have a mirror in his house?

Perhaps the most honest approach to Craig is taken by a forum called 'Craig, Daniel Craig'. They have nine members and none of them have posted since April. An absolutely dreadful picture of Craig in front of a Union Jack adorns the top of the page. The Union Jack is upside down and if you don't know what an upside down Union Jack means you should read more books.

- Luke Quantrill

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