Fleet takes his Q from Bond’s gadget genius
JAMES FLEET will play the boffin who was the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s gadget genius Q in his James Bond novels.
The actor will portray Charles Fraser-Smith, a scientist and farmer tasked by British intelligence services with disguising useful implements as everyday items. Steel shoelaces that could be used as a garrotte, for instance.
He was also asked to come up with a container which could keep a corpse on ice until needed. The body was required for Operation Mincemeat, an outrageous plan concocted by officials from Naval Intelligence, with assistance from Fleming (who worked with the unit), designed to mislead the German High Command about the impending Allied invasion of Sicily.
A film, based on Ben Macintyre’s bestselling book, is shooting now. Director John Madden has cast Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen as Commander Ewan Montagu and Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley, the MI5 operatives who oversaw the plot. Johnny Flynn will play Fleming and Ellie Haddington will be Cholmondeley’s mother Nellie.
Fleet, who recently appeared in TV series Unforgotten, is probably best known as Tom — the brother of Kristin Scott Thomas — in Four Weddings And A Funeral and Hugo in The Vicar Of Dibley.
Alex Jennings also joined the cast this week, in the role of spymaster John Masterman, who ran the Double Cross System, officially known as the Twenty Committee.