The Evening Standard British Film Awards gave a little surprise yesterday which certainly won't have any major affect on the Oscars.

They awarded Best Actor to Daniel Craig for Casino Royale (Filmstalker review) and Best Actress to Judi Dench for Notes on a Scandal.

In other more awards, through The Hollywood Reporter, Sacha Baron Cohen won the Peter Sellers Award for comedy. Peter Morgan won Best Screenplay for The Queen and The Last King of Scotland (Filmstalker review), and Stephen Frears won the award for reverberating British film around the world (sounds rude) for The Queen. Superbly United 93 (Filmstalker review) took the Best Film.

Although I haven't managed to get my hands on the entire list yet, those are some very notable mentions. Dench over Helen Mirren? Well actually from the material I've seen I'm not surprised as Dench is playing a character quite against her normal type.

Perhaps more surprising is Craig winning out over his rivals for Best Actor. Helped along I think by mastering a franchise character so well and a superb script and direction behind him.

Would you think these are maverick British awards or do you agree with some of them?