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In
1969 Dai (then David Bradley) was chosen by director Ken Loach to
play the lead role of Billy Casper in Kes, the story of a boy in
a Barnsley mining village who for a short time escapes from the
grim reality of his life when he finds a wild kestrel.
Voted
the seventh greatest British film of all time in a BFI (British
Film Institute) poll, 35 years on Kes still has a dark message but
Dai believes his latest film Asylum is more harrowing. Three young
Kurds, fleeing persecution and torture in northern Iraq, seek asylum
in the UK. After a misunderstanding over paperwork Mahmoud and Razghar
are going to be detained but are given sanctuary by a priest when
they burst into his church. A 20-day siege follows.
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| Dai
Bradley as Father Michael in Asylum |
Dai
Bradley plays the priest, Father Michael. He says of the film: "It's
a very powerful, dramatic, no-punches-pulled drama." He also
believes it is very topical. When visiting his own town of Barnsley
recently "one of the locals near where my mother lives caught
me in the street and said he thought [the film] was a wonderful
idea. He'd just seen a Panorama programme about the sweatshop industry
in the Far East and he thought that the movie should be shown at
schools all over the country. I thought, coming from an ordinary
working-class bloke, a builder by trade, this was very illuminating.
I think it would do very well in schools. It would help pupils realise
that different cultures have in some way got to understand each
other to move on from the prejudices and bigotry we have in society."
He
talks about his own role in the film: "I came on board quite
late. I only had about seven days to prepare for my character and
it was a huge script, about 300 pages...Not knowing anything really
about the Catholic faith, although I am very interested in philosophy
and comparative religion, I went on a crash course. The whole film
took five weeks to shoot. It was just after Christmas when I came
on board so I was able to get to a Christmas mass and a New Year's
Mass just to see the ritual of giving Communion...I was also fortunate
enough to go and meet a real Catholic father who ran a lodge for
visiting priests from the Third World and Ireland. So although I
was a little nervous on the first day of shooting it was a great
challenge and I don't forget it for one moment."
Dai
believes there are similarities between Asylum and his first film:
"The director, Nigel Barker, wanted to create a documentary
style film which is what Ken Loach tends to do and also Mike Leigh
- two great directors in this country who don't get the credit they
deserve. There are certain similarities in the style of filming
it, it's very real, but there are other features about the film
too. It's also about Father Michael's dilemma with the church authorities
who want him to resolve the issue as soon possible, they want him
to come into the church which he believes would be against these
boys' civil rights. He believes there's a great wrong being done
here and he wants to ensure these young people will not be put back
on the first plane to Iraq.
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| Asylum
is a "very much in your face and no punches pulled"
film. |
"So
there are similarities between Kes and Asylum. Kes wasn't as harrowing
in some ways as Asylum was. Asylum takes place inside a church and,
owing to the fact the director wanted to create this very real environment,
it's very much in your face and no punches pulled, and he created
situations whereby we ran several scenes together. There was one
section which ran for about 15 minutes which in film terms is very
long indeed so I can recall two particular days when we shot something
like 60 scenes. In some respects it was a harrowing experience and
the film is quite near to the bone too. It's not for the faint-hearted
but it's definitely worth seeing because it helps you understand
more about the situation of people escaping from persecution and
torture, and there are legitimate people who have asylum claims
as opposed to economic immigration which is a different issue all
together."
As
with Kes, Asylum director Nigel Barker has used local people to
take the part of the parishioners and has largely cast actors who
are not very well known in the main roles, seeking performances
that were not theatrical. Dai says: "In a lot of respects I
try to play down my character, or the exuberance Dai Bradley gives
to a theatrical performance because it's not really the story of
Father Michael. It's about the two young boys."
If
Dai considers himself to be somewhat theatrical it may be be something
to do with the fact that between Kes and Asylum he has also been
acting on the stage. He was in Peter Shaffer's play Equus for a
run of two and a half years and there have been other good roles:
"I chanced upon a wonderful Ted Hughes radio play, that is
in his book Wodwo, which I recall seeing at the Old Vic with a wonderful
actor called Peter McEnery. I was astounded by this piece of work
and promised myself if I ever had the opportunity to do the piece
that I would try. I recall being in South Africa prior to the political
changes there and I had the opportunity to do this play called The
Wound. It was a psychological drama taking place in World War Two
about a young man who is the only survivor after a surprise attack
by the enemy, which I thought was quite apt for South Africa. I'd
just finished doing a film called For King and Country, which Dirk
Bogarde and Tom Courtenay did in the '60s, and a great friend of
mine out in South Africa asked me to do a play of my own choosing.
My friend and I co-directed it, I played the leading role and we
got good reviews. It's a one-hour piece and we were nominated for
best play and best actor.
"Filmwise,
Absolution is something I enjoyed doing with Richard Burton and
Billy Connolly. That was great fun, but the role of the actor, unless
you're in the top 7% or 8%, is a kind of roller-coaster and my career
has been a roller-coaster in a lot of ways, but then I don't see
life purely as being solely about acting. That's what I do for a
living. That's what I enjoy doing obviously but life is about experiences
and taking challenges as opposed to be fretting about where the
next job is coming from."
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