Dai Bradley

David "Dai" Bradley, born on 27 September 1953 in the hamlet of Stubbs, near Barnsley, is an English actor whose Broadway credits include Equus in 1975. His mother, Nora, worked as a seamstress, and his father, Horace "Pop" Bradley, was a miner at North Gawber Colliery. Bradley has described his childhood as "unremarkable," with his only early performance experience coming from amateur Christmas pantomimes.

At fourteen, Bradley was cast as Billy Casper in Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes, a role that brought him widespread recognition. During production, he spent several hours each day after filming training with the kestrels used in the picture. Loach employed unconventional techniques to draw genuine emotional responses from the young actor, including surprising him with a barking dog, administering unexpected canings, and informing him that a co-star would actually kill a kestrel for the film's final scene. Bradley later recalled the football sequence as a particularly unpleasant memory, noting that a fire engine was used to flood the field with water on a cold August day. For his performance, he received BAFTA's Award for Best Newcomer. Following the film's release in 1970, Bradley left school at seventeen, relocated to London, and began training with the National Theatre Company, where he worked alongside Anthony Hopkins, Joan Plowright, and Derek Jacobi. He adopted the name Dai upon joining Equity, the actors' union, because another actor named David Bradley was already registered.

His early television work included the role of Peter Weekes in the second series of the children's programme The Flaxton Boys and the lead role of Terry Connor in the 1973 children's adventure serial The Jensen Code. He also appeared in guest roles on Z-Cars and A Family at War.

Bradley's theatre work during the 1970s earned him considerable critical praise. He played Hanschen Rilow in the Old Vic's production of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening, a role for which Plays and Players wrote that his performance was "a virtuoso effort, full of awkward and loquacious passion." The production also featured Michael Kitchen, Peter Firth, Veronica Quilligan, and Gerard Ryder. Bradley subsequently took on the role of Alan Strang in Peter Shaffer's Equus, succeeding Peter Firth at the Old Vic in London before the production embarked on a two-and-a-half-year worldwide tour. In the United States national production, he starred opposite Brian Bedford, earning standing ovations and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nomination for Best Actor. Reviewing his performance at the Wilbur Theatre, The Harvard Crimson described Bradley as "outstanding" in what it called the most difficult role in the play, while Mark J. Bly of The Heights praised his portrayal as "profoundly sensitive" and called the production "equally as good as its New York counterpart." He also performed the role opposite John Fraser in South Africa. Although he was offered the chance to take over the Broadway production of Equus in 1975, Bradley declined due to exhaustion. In 1977, he appeared as Souplier in Henry de Montherlant's The Fire that Consumes at the Mermaid Theatre, opposite Nigel Hawthorne. The production received the Society of West End Theatre Award for Play of the Year, the prize now known as the Olivier Award.

His film appearances during the 1970s included Malachi's Cove in 1973, Absolution in 1978, All Quiet on the Western Front in 1979, and the Zulu prequel Zulu Dawn, also in 1979. By the early 1980s, his film career had largely stalled. He was originally considered for the role of Neville Hope in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, but the part went to his close friend Kevin Whately. For much of the decade, Bradley worked as a carpenter and renovator. He also became a follower of the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti and pursued several projects that did not come to fruition, among them a board game, a television series centered on high-stakes backgammon, and a film about medical ethics. In 1999, he began writing a children's novel.

When Kes was re-released in cinemas in 1999 to mark its thirtieth anniversary, Bradley made hundreds of appearances across the United Kingdom alongside the film's other surviving cast members. In 2003, he played Father Michael, a Catholic priest and one of three leads, in Nigel Barker's independent film The Refuge. He returned to film in 2013 alongside Jason Statham in Hummingbird. On 8 September 2015, he appeared in the Holby City episode "An Eye for an Eye" as an elderly man who regards himself as a "bad luck charm." In 2016, Bradley told The Guardian that he had written a sequel to Kes but set the project aside following the death of the original novel's author, Barry Hines. He appeared as the Porter and Projectionist in Kit Monkman's cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, completed by GSP Studios in 2017 and released in UK theatres on 13 March 2018.