Greg Davies: Looking for Kes
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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Main Cast
Greg Davies
Greg Davies is an award-winning stand-up comedian, writer and actor known for starring in his critically lauded sitcom Man Down (Channel 4). After playing the infamously psychotic Head of Sixth Form ‘Mr Gilbert’ in The Inbetweeners(Channel 4) and its two spin off feature films, Greg went on to appear in Cuckoo (BBC Three) alongside Andy Samberg and Taylor Lautner, which earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme. He made a guest star appearance as King Hydroflax in the 2015 Doctor Who Christmas Special (BBC One), and voiced ‘Balloon Man’ in the feature film Teen Titans Go! To The Movies (Warner Bros).
Known For
David Bradley
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
Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936; Nuneaton) is a British film director, screenwriter and producer. His socially critical directing style is evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (Poor Cow, 1967), homelessness (Cathy Come Home, 1966), and labour rights (Riff-Raff, 1991, and The Navigators, 2001). Kenneth Charles Loach was born on 17 June 1936 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the son of Vivien (née Hamlin) and John Loach. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and at the age of 19 went to serve in the Royal Air Force. He read law at St Peter's College, Oxford and graduated with a third-class degree. As a member of the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club he directed an open-air production of Bartholomew Fair for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford, in 1959 (when he also took the role of the shady horse-dealer Dan Jordan Knockem). After Oxford, he began a career in the dramatic arts. Loach's film Kes (1969) was voted the seventh greatest British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British Film Institute. Two of his films, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016), received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making him one of only nine filmmakers to win the award twice.
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Unknown Actor
Known For
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach
2016
The Boys
1962
Jarvis Cocker
Jarvis Branson Cocker is an English musician and radio presenter. As the founder, frontman, lyricist, and sole consistent member of the band Pulp, he became a figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s. Following Pulp's hiatus, Cocker has pursued a solo career, and for seven years he presented the BBC Radio 6 Music show Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service.
Known For
Unknown Actor
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Unknown Actor
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Barry Hines
An English author, playwright, screenwriter and amateur footballer. His novels and screenplays explore the political and economic struggles of working-class Northern England, particularly in his native West Riding/South Yorkshire. He is best known for the novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968), which he helped adapt for Ken Loach's film Kes (1969). He collaborated with Loach on adaptations of his novels Looks and Smiles and The Gamekeeper, and the 1977 two-part television drama The Price of Coal. He also wrote the television film Threads, which depicts the impact of a nuclear war on Sheffield.
Known For
Movie Details
Production Info
- Production:
- BBC
Locations and Languages
- Country:
- GB
- Filming:
- GB
- Languages:
- en