Greg Davies: Looking for Kes

Greg Davies travels to Barnsley to meet those intimately tied to Barry Hines's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave, including Hines's brother Richard, actor Dai Bradley and film director Ken Loach. In a series of encounters with Barry Hines's friends and family, collaborators and admirers, Greg offers a warm, funny and poignant tribute to a book that gave a unique voice to the working-class experience and, in Billy Casper, created a young rebel whose story continues to connect with readers more than 50 years after it was first published in 1968. In the fish and chip shop young Billy visits in Kes, now renamed Caspers, Greg meets Dai Bradley who played Billy Casper. Together they wonder what might have become of him. 'I think he would have kept that fighting spirit,' says Dai. 'There’s a lot of kids like him out there and the message of the book is that we need to find ways to harness that energy.'

Track
0 trackers | Status: Continuing | Airs on BBC Four | 12:00 AM