Potter star is potty over York City FC

LEANING forward over his pint of Terrier, David Bradley says: "I asked my kids who they thought I should play, hoping they would say somebody suave and smooth. Professor Snape, maybe.

"But they said: 'no way, dad, you're Filch!' I said thanks a bunch."

It might not be an orthodox casting process, but it was the conversation

which put David on the road to big-screen stardom.

A few weeks later, he was cast as Argus Filch, the cadaverous caretaker of Hogwarts School, in Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone.

A firm favourite with fans of book and film, Filch - and David Bradley - will return for the next instalment, The Chamber of Secrets.

That a plucky lad from York's Burton Stone Lane should go on to such fame doesn't surprise us greatly, here in the city of Dame Judi Dench. But it's more surprising when the conversation turns from working with the likes of Laurence Olivier to the current woes of York City.

It is the beleaguered football club which has brought David home this time.

He comes back from his new home in Stratford several times a year to visit his mother, Hilda, and sister Joan. But he made a point of coming back to join last week's march in support of City.

"I used to have a season ticket," he says, with his utterly charming Yorkie lilt.

"It's always the first result I look for on a Saturday evening. Living in Stratford, I did have a fling with Aston Villa, but City is my childhood sweetheart."

David regrets missing the recent supporters' meeting at the Barbican Centre, thanks to the inconsiderate filming schedules of Potter II.

"I remember Norman Wilkinson so well, and I'd have loved to have seen him there.

"Like many people, I remember the 1954-1955 cup run. I saw the game against Tottenham, in the snow, because I was a steward for St John Ambulance Brigade. If a fan was in trouble, you would see someone waving a hanky in the crowd, and the person would be lifted down by the supporters; it was very dramatic."

Not dramatic enough, perhaps, for a man who went on to play great roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. A performer who has won the Laurence Oliver Award for Best Supporting Actor playing Fool in King Lear. An actor who used to work in a York factory where he was once described by his foreman as "the original square peg".

"I served a five-year apprenticeship in optical instruments at Vickers, and

then worked at a subsidiary called Cooke, Troughton and Sims," he says.

"For me, it was like pinning a tail on a donkey. I was hopeless at school, so I just found myself doing that."

His rescue came by treading the boards. He was no stranger to entertaining; as a young teenager he and brother Jeff were "paid plants" in the audience of the York Empire, now the Grand Opera House, giving the right answers to mind-readers.

"That was a buzz," he notes, remembering that anyone from Laurel and Hardy to Frankie Howerd could have been up next.

But it was impresario Edward Taylor, of York's Co-Op Players, who told David to start doing it for real. At the time, he had found his way into three theatre groups, but it was the Co-Ops, with their repertoire of Greek

tragedies and impenetrable melodramas, that really cast the spell.

"The acting was just a hobby; I never thought people such as me took it up for real. Then I met Edward, and his enthusiasm had a big influence on me. He told me I should think seriously about drama school."

Luckily, David enjoyed the support of his family. His father, George, a major player in the transport workers' union in York, backed his efforts.

From the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, David later joined the Sheffield Playhouse, before being snapped up by Granada TV for its long-running series, Family At War.

He carved out a glittering theatre career, working with Olivier in the 1970s and

played Christ in York's Mystery Plays in 1976, and God in a recent production of the Mysteries at the National.

And then there was Potter.

"I was on holiday with my kids in Italy, and two of them were reading the books. I thought if I perhaps read one of them, it would explain all the fuss. I got hooked. Then the kids said: 'They're making a film, why don't you try and be in it?'"

You know the rest. When told he had clinched the the part the kids were "dancing on the ceiling".

David was one of the lucky ones.

"I heard that one actor has set up a website for other actors whose kids keep asking them why they aren't in Harry Potter," he says.

"I haven't done anything on this level before, but talking to people such as

Richard Harris and Maggie Smith, they say the same thing.

Work on The Chamber Of Secrets proceeds apace.

Bizarrely, David cannot say too much about it, because he is bound by a confidentiality clause which bears a passing resemblance to War And Peace.

He grins. "I wonder what's the point, because half the world knows what happens in the book." Readers will know that Filch takes centre stage when his beloved pet cat,

Mrs Norris, is found dead. Needless to say, there is a twist. So how did he become this murky old janitor?

"The character is great to play; you just read the book and it tells you everything you need to know."

He relished the fact that he was allowed to work with costume and make-up teams to create the look of Filch.

"I see him as a cross between someone from the old Wild West and a medieval pickpocket."

Chatting about his heroes, he mentions fellow actor Ian Holm, which brings us to Lord Of The Rings. Holm plays Bilbo Baggins in the new Rings blockbuster, but David believes the rivalry between the two epics has been exaggerated.

"I haven't seen it yet, but too much has been made of the competition. I just think it's great that two films of such epic proportion have come out at the same time."

His other heroes include the young stars of Potter.

"We just drift in and out, but they're there all the time. And yet it hasn't turned their heads. They're delightful."

He has an acute understanding of the effects on a young person of being involved in a Potter movie. His 15-year-old daughter, Francesca, can be glimpsed as a pupil of Gryffindor House in the next film. "All the actors are trying to get their kids into it; I've just been lucky," he says.

It isn't long, though, before the conversation drifts back to York City.

"Doing the Mysteries in York made me realise what a contribution theatre makes to a community; it's the same as a football team. They're both things that bring people together. It's all about shared, live experiences.

"That's why I love them both, and why I wish City all the best."

Updated: 11:16 Friday, February 15, 2002