David Bradley

David Bradley

Born: September 27, 1953
in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, UK
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.

Movies for David Bradley...

Greg Davies: Looking for Kes
Title: Greg Davies: Looking for Kes
Character: Self
Released: November 19, 2019
Type: Movie
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.
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Macbeth
Title: Macbeth
Character: Porter
Released: March 13, 2018
Type: Movie
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.
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Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach
Title: Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach
Character: Himself
Released: June 30, 2016
Type: Movie
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.
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Hummingbird
Title: Hummingbird
Character: Billy
Released: May 7, 2013
Type: Movie
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.
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Making Kes
Title: Making Kes
Character: Himself
Released: September 1, 2010
Type: Movie
A documentary on the making of Kes, produced by the Criterion Collection.
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Asylum
Title: Asylum
Character: Father Michael
Released: January 19, 2003
Type: Movie
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.
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Those Glory Glory Days
Title: Those Glory Glory Days
Character: 1961 Spurs Team Member
Released: November 17, 1983
Type: Movie
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.
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The Battle of Waterloo
Title: The Battle of Waterloo
Character: Ferris
Released: February 13, 1983
Type: Movie
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.
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The World Cup: A Captain's Tale
Title: The World Cup: A Captain's Tale
Character: Ticer Thomas
Released: June 13, 1982
Type: Movie
The true story of the First world football competition, won by a team comprised of miners from Durham.
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Title: All Quiet on the Western Front
Character: Albert Kropp
Released: November 14, 1979
Type: Movie
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.
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Zulu Dawn
Title: Zulu Dawn
Character: Pte Williams
Released: May 14, 1979
Type: Movie
In 1879, the British suffer a great loss at the Battle of Isandlwana due to incompetent leadership.
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Absolution
Title: Absolution
Character: Arthur Dyson
Released: June 5, 1978
Type: Movie
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.
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Title: Bedtime Stories
Character: Lennie Burr
Released: March 3, 1974
Type: TV
Modern-day interpretation of fairy tales, with a contemporary, darker twist.
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Malachi's Cove
Title: Malachi's Cove
Character: Barty
Released: October 1, 1973
Type: Movie
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.
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Title: The Jensen Code
Character: Terry
Released: February 28, 1973
Type: TV
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’...
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Kes
Title: Kes
Character: Billy Casper
Released: April 3, 1970
Type: Movie
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—until tragedy strikes.
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Title: The Flaxton Boys
Character: Peter Weekes
Released: September 21, 1969
Type: TV
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Title: Hallmark Hall of Fame
Character: Kropp
Released: December 24, 1951
Type: TV
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2013. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, though the program began with live telecasts of dramas and then changed to videotaped productions before finally changing to filmed ones. The series has received eighty Emmy Awards, twenty-four Christopher Awards, eleven Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and four Humanitas Prizes. Once a common practice in American television, it is the last remaining television program such that the title includes the name of the sponsor. Unlike other long-running TV series still on the air, it differs in that it broadcasts only occasionally and not on a weekly broadcast programming schedule.