David Bradley tweeted this morning, a reply to someone called Lewis Capaldi about a pop video.  This led me to watch the video – and cry – and feel myself a little connected with the modern world.  I don’t often watch pop videos;  I hadn’t even heard of Lewis Capaldi. 

David Bradley however:  he has been a significant part of my world for many years.  There is a word ‘idiolect’ which means the speech habits peculiar to a particular person.  I am going to coin the word ‘idiomundus’:  my own, peculiar, particular world.  I quite like that: it certainly seems to describe this website.

My lovely mum had an eye for a good actor and I quickly learned to take note if she mentioned someone.   The unpredictability of the acting world is such that talent and success are only moderately correlated and so we accumulated a cast of fine actors whom it was always a joy to spot, but whose names were sometimes unfamiliar if we mentioned them in general conversation.   Most of these are from theatre work, of course, and there is often an absurd disparity between the remembered experience of an intense, shared moment in live performance and the broader social reference point which I can use:  so with David Bradley, regarding whom, with most people I say ‘Filch’ and they know exactly who I mean. 

But for me, he was first a tall rangy figure in a top hat, viewed from a distance in Stratford upon Avon.  I don’t even know the play:  it was a promenade production, sold out so we didn’t have tickets, but we snuck around – tailing them for a bit as it were – to get the flavour.  Ah, was it possibly The Dillon?  If so was Ron Cook in it?  He was another one on mum’s list. 

As we developed the habit of going to Stratford each summer, it was always a joy to see these names reappearing in the cast lists and even more exciting to see them cast in more prominent roles.  1982 King Lear:  a stunning production with Michael Gambon, Anthony Sher….  The duke of Albany, one of the husbands, married to Lear’s older daughters, was David Bradley. There is a moment when Albany turns on Goneril: Act IV Scene ii

O Goneril,
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face!

I have seen King Lear many times since then:  this moment can be almost overlooked and Albany is a role which sometimes doesn’t even register.  My understanding of, my experience of King Lear, changed permanently through the way David Bradley played the part and, in particular, delivered those lines with crisp, dry, restrained but absolute decisiveness.  With this moment, the play pivots and we start to hope that some sort of moral order can begin to be reclaimed.   I cannot see King Lear without his voice echoing in my mind at that point.

The performance was just before I went to university to read English: it added to my knowledge of the play, gave me an insight that I might not have found in textbooks or rather, even better for that moment, enabled me to discover it for myself and increased my sense of confidence that, while I had much to learn I did, at some level, ‘get’ Shakespeare. A precious thing at that age.

So in my idiomundus, David Bradley is significant. But it’s not just for his playing of that role. I don’t know how many times I have seen him on stage.  Surely there’s an Andrew Aguecheek in there, somewhere?  Gloucester in a later King Lear certainly (just checked the photos and, oh my actual goodness that’s Simon Russell Beale as Edgar…), Cymbeline when you were touring to Plymouth. Oh, of course the Doctor in Bond’s Lear, and Arden of Faversham with Mark Rylance as a young boy, and I am sure there are so many more if I keep mining my memory.   

I once sat behind him at the National Theatre, a pre-show talk about Henry IV (in which he played Henry IV, I was charmed to see that he came to listen to the talk).  There were a few moments before it started when it felt possible to lean forward, approach him:  he kindly signed my children’s autograph books, drawing a picture of Mrs Norris for them.  I left a bunch of flowers at the stage door for him as a thank you later and I hope they reached him. 

Seeing his name in a cast list is a pleasure in itself and if it is a Shakespeare production I thrill with the knowledge of how much experience and depth of understanding he carries within him, from having been immersed in the words for years.  No matter what the production, or film, or programme, I know that I can watch this particular actor and I will be rewarded by seeing immaculate, quality acting: even if ‘just’ stroking Mrs Norris, being asked about a firearms licence by the Sandford police, or riding a bicycle dressed as a postman.

I hope actors know that their performances enrich people’s lives in this way.  Not just in the moment, at the time, but for years and years afterwards and creating an intertwining enriching network of associations and memories.  I feel such great fondness for David Bradley.  He feels like a lovely person to have in my idiomundus and I suspect there are very many others like me, people who have seen him on stage over the years and for whom theatre performance is an important, significant place in their psyches.  And this morning, via the odd context of Twitter,  he led me to remember all this, and watch a lovely video of him, feel a little more connected to the modern world (I now know the name of one current pop singer – are such people even called pop singers any more?), and rejoice that he is alive and be grateful for all that we have, as it were, shared.