
David Bradley
Acting
Biography
Born to a miner father and a seamstress mother in Barnsley, South Yorkshire in 1953, David Bradley is best known for playing Billy Casper in Ken Loach's 1969 film, Kes. Prior to this starring role, Bradley had only ever acted in school pantomimes and secured the lead in an open audition against thousands of children. Following the success of Kes, Bradley had to change his name to Dai Bradley on account of the actor David Bradley already having an Equity card in that name. Bradley turned to television appearing as the lead in two children's series The Flaxton Boys and The Jensen Code and guest roles in Z Cars, Nearest and Dearest and A Family at War. He appeared in several other movies as a young man in the tail end of the 70s including All Quiet on the Western Front, Zulu Dawn and Absolution but by the following decade Bradley decided to retire from acting and tried his hand as a writer instead. In recent years he has returned to the profession as David Bradley once more and has had roles in the film Hummingbird and the children's TV series The Dumping Ground.
Known For

Long-running anthology program sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2019, the series received 80 Emmy Awards, 24 Christopher Awards, 11 Peabody Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 4 Humanitas Prizes. Early seasons were a weekly live drama, eventually transitioning to videotaped and then filmed productions broadcast as occasional specials.
Hallmark Hall of Fame

Homeless and on the run from a military court martial, a damaged ex-special forces soldier navigating London's criminal underworld seizes an opportunity to assume another man's identity, transforming into an avenging angel in the process.
Hummingbird

In 1879, the British suffer a great loss at the Battle of Isandlwana due to incompetent leadership.
Zulu Dawn

At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.
All Quiet on the Western Front

The Flaxton Boys is a British historical children's television series produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV, created by Sid Waddell. Four seasons—covering a specific period: 1854, during the Crimean War (series 1), 1890 (series 2), 1928 (series 3), and 1945, in the aftermath of WWII (series 4)—explore four generations of young men and their experiences at Flaxton Hall in Yorkshire.
The Flaxton Boys

Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.
Kes

An anthology of six plays, contemporary twists on well-loved tales with dark endings.
Bedtime Stories

Sixteen-year-old Terry Connor is sent, along with a few of his friends, to an Outward Bound centre. On his first day at the centre Terry is taken pot-holing by the senior instructor, Alex. All goes well until, at 100 feet underground, Alex goes to search for the torch that Terry has dropped. Hours pass, and, to Terry’s astonishment, when Alex finally returns he has no recollection whatever of having been absent. Terry suspects something sinister is taking place – it is surely no coincidence that there is a secret Ministry of Defence establishment nearby. But just how deeply his curiosity will involve him in dangerous matters becomes clear when he learns the truth about the ‘Jensen Code’...
The Jensen Code

A surprisingly candid behind-the-scenes account of the career of Ken Loach, one of Britain’s most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, as he prepares to release his final major film I, Daniel Blake.
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach

At a Catholic boys' school, domineering disciplinarian Father Goddard rules over his pupils with an iron hand. When one of his teenage charges confesses to murder, the dogmatic but deeply repressed Goddard finds his faith challenged and his life spiralling dangerously out of control.
Absolution

Entirely shot on green screen, Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been reinvented by director Kit Monkman (The Knife That Killed Me) in an exciting new film adaptation. Starring Mark Rowley, (The Last Kingdom, Luther). Monkman’s unique adaptation successfully bridges the gap between theatre and film to create a wholly new type of imaginative space. This radical new adaptation puts the audience’s engagement with the story centre-stage, amplifying the theatrical context of the original and creating truly innovative and thrilling cinematic vistas, whilst maintaining the language and themes of Shakespeare’s original play. Using background matte painting and computer modelling to generate the world in which the action plays out, the green screen allows Monkman to create his vision of a multi-tiered globe in which the characters play out their various fates.
Macbeth

The true story of the First world football competition, won by a team comprised of miners from Durham.
The World Cup: A Captain's Tale

Girls growing up in 1960-61 London develop a passion for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the first British team in the 20th century to win the English league and FA Cup "double". Twenty years later, one of the girls tracks down players of the '60-'61 Spurs for a documentary.
Those Glory Glory Days

For the infantrymen, old hands and raw recruits, 36 hours of forced march and a night in pouring rain are followed by a day in a muddy cornfield, facing cannon, cavalry, and infantry. If they're still standing as the day ends, they've won.
The Battle of Waterloo

Comedian, actor and ex-English teacher Greg Davies is a lifelong fan of Barry Hines's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave, the story of Billy Casper training a kestrel as an escape from his troubled home and school life. In this documentary, Greg goes in search of the book's enduring appeal, travelling to Barnsley, where the book was set and where Ken Loach's famous adaptation, Kes, was filmed.
Greg Davies: Looking for Kes

A tough young girl lives with her aging grandfather near a cove on the coast of Cornwall. She supports herself and him by gathering seaweed to sell as fertilizer. A cocky young neighboring boy decides to help her with the work.
Malachi's Cove

Fleeing persecution and torture in northern Iraq, three young Kurds, Mahmoud, Rezghar and Saman, smuggle themselves into Britain aboard a freight train. Arriving in London they register for asylum but soon experience the first blast of bureaucracy, as their papers are lost in the system. When Saman is detained in prison and the police attempt to arrest Rezghar, he flees and hides in a church where Father Michael is leading a service.
Asylum
Joyce would appear to have everything to live for: two young children, an executive husband and a nice home, but...
That Quiet Earth

A documentary on the making of Kes, produced by the Criterion Collection.