David Bradley

In Allelujah (2023), David Bradley’s Joe Colman and his son, played by Russell Tovey, avoid each other’s eyes at a hospital bedside. We were moved by their inability to say much about all those years of silence. Heidi Thomas writes the conversation, and director Richard Eyre has the sense to hold the shot. Bradley makes Joe funny by treating his obstinacy as the last freedom left to him, without asking for our affection. The film goes badly wrong elsewhere; Bradley and Bally Gill are the reasons to persist.

Bradley had spent two decades in supporting stage and television roles before Eddie Wells in Our Friends in the North (1996) brought him a substantial screen part and wider opportunities. We rate the series highly for the patience of its domestic scenes, though Peter Flannery sometimes rushes the public history. International recognition followed with Argus Filch in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), then Walder Frey in Game of Thrones (2011). The surly and malicious older men became familiar casting. It is easy to let that gruff voice stand for everything he does.

His voice has a useful comic task in Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023), where Fowler delivers the briefing at length. Fowler’s briefing is one job among the engineering, the equipment and the knitting, and Bradley belongs comfortably in that company. Editor Stephen Perkins keeps the break-in moving between the team inside and the team outside, and it is the strongest stretch of a mostly pleasant sequel. We would not choose it chiefly for Bradley, but his presence is welcome.

Frankenstein (2025) gives him more room, and he uses it well. As the Blind Man, he plays plainly while editor Evan Schiff lets his scenes run, a welcome contrast with the fast, crowded cutting around Victor. The quieter work suits Bradley, and it also helps a film too often given to shouting at machinery. We would like more directors to give him that time; there is no need to keep asking him to be disagreeable. Begin with Our Friends in the North for the fuller evening; choose Allelujah when good acting can be enough.