David Bradley makes Billy’s curiosity in Kes as compelling as his hardship. We value the performance for the care and concentration it gives a boy who could so easily have been played only for pity.
Fi1m perspective
With the kestrel, David Bradley’s Billy has a subject he wants to understand. In Kes (1970), that interest matters as much as the cruelty he encounters at home and school, because it gives us a reason to spend time with him beyond feeling sorry for him. We were moved by the patience he gives the bird, which reveals an appetite for learning that his school scarcely acknowledges. Bradley lets us share the pleasure of finding something worth studying. He makes Billy good company without making his circumstances any easier.
That performance remains the clearest reason to seek out Bradley, though the work did not stop there. Under the professional name Dai Bradley, he played Alan Strang in the touring production of Equus (1974), followed by film parts in Absolution (1978) and Zulu Dawn (1979). His screen work became sporadic, with occasional later appearances including Hummingbird (2013). It would be easy to treat the thinner filmography as a verdict on the actor. Nothing in Billy’s sustained, unforced concentration makes that convincing.
Ken Loach gives that concentration room, and editor Roy Watts allows the stretches with the kestrel to proceed without hurrying us towards the next indignity. We have time to become interested in what interests Billy, rather than merely registering that the bird makes him happy. John Cameron’s music supports the tenderness, but Bradley has already supplied a reason to feel it. The surrounding variety of speech and acting styles also helps him belong to a recognisable community. Loach makes room for humour there, so Billy is not left carrying an uninterrupted lesson in deprivation.
Not all of that works equally well. Some of the adults are drawn so broadly that their hostility becomes predictable, and the awkward joins between performances can briefly break our involvement. Loach presses the contrast between Billy’s care for the bird and the community’s failures harder than he needs to. Bradley keeps playing a boy with something to learn even when the adults seem to exist solely to discourage him. Watch Kes for Bradley, and allow its quieter stretches the time they ask for.
Biography
David Bradley, also credited as Dai Bradley, is an English actor born on 27 September 1953 in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. He is best known for his debut role as Billy Casper in Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes.
Bradley secured the part at the age of 14 after an open audition. He received a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer. After the film, he changed his professional name to Dai on joining Equity. He left school at 17, moved to London and trained with the National Theatre Company, where he worked with actors including Anthony Hopkins, Joan Plowright and Derek Jacobi. He played the lead in a touring production of Equus.
His other film roles include appearances in Absolution (1978), All Quiet on the Western Front (1979) and Zulu Dawn (1979). He later returned to acting in films such as Hummingbird (2013).
