A Kestrel For A Knave by Robert Rigby

A Kestrel for a Knave

Robert Rigby’s dramatisation of Barry Hines’s 1968 coming-of-age novel set in a mining town in South Yorkshire.

Young Billy Casper is ridiculed and bullied at home and at school but he discovers meaning and purpose in his harsh day-to-day existence when he finds a beautiful kestrel he calls Kes. Life fleetingly takes on direction, meaning and some small status for Billy as he trains his hawk, but will this kind-of-contentment be short-lived?

Billy Casper ….. George Kent
Jud Casper ….. Joe McArdle
Mrs Casper ….. Kelly Harrison
Mr Crossley / Newsagent ….. Craig Cheetham
Mr Gryce / Butcher ….. Adrian Hood
Mr Farthing / Milkman ….. Lee Rufford
Youth Employment Officer / Mrs Rose ….. Olwen May
MacDowall ….. Daniel Rainford
Armitage ….. Daniel Corey
Anderson ….. Corey Westwood
Ellis / Tibbut ….. Troy Tipple
Young Boy ….. Isaac Bartram

Additional cast: Ronan Braisby, Dominic Cooper, Ethan Godbold, Olivia Sephton, Ella McHugh, Grace McVeigh, Daniel King, Georgia Mahoney and Harvey Kitchen.

Recorded on location in Barnsley, Yorkshire. With thanks to The Civic and the Pauline Quirke Academy, Barnsley.

Sound Recordist: Alisdair McGregor
Sound Design & Music: Lucinda Mason Brown

Production Manager: Sarah Tombling

Director: Fiona McAlpine
Producer: Lucinda Mason Brown

A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4

Drama
First broadcast:
Sat 7th Sep 2019
15:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM

Life is tough and cheerless for Billy Casper, a troubled teenager growing up in the small Yorkshire mining town of Barnsley. Treated as a failure at school, and unhappy at home, Billy discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk. Billy identifies with her silent strength and she inspires in him the trust and love that nothing else can, discovering through her the passion missing from his life.

Barry Hines's acclaimed novel continues to reach new generations of teenagers and adults with its powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world.