Director: Phil Smalley
Bare-knuckle fighting on stacked hay bales sounds like a folk tale, but Phil Smalley's 2024 documentary treats it as the real backdrop for one man's life story.
What is The Beast of the Bales about?
The Beast of the Bales tracks boxer Dave Radford across roughly a decade, moving between the makeshift bale rings of rural England and the quieter stretches of his life outside them. Smalley builds the 101-minute film less as a highlight reel of fights and more as a character study, following Radford through setbacks, training, and the people around him who keep the sport running on a local, almost informal level. The Badcock family — Danny, Harley, and Raymond — appear throughout as figures embedded in this same world, giving the documentary a sense of a small, tight community rather than a single hero narrative.
Cast & crew
Dave Radford is the film's central subject, filmed candidly rather than performing for the camera, while Danny Badcock, Harley Badcock, and Raymond Badcock round out a cast of real participants in the bale-fighting scene. None of them are professional actors; Smalley's approach relies on access and trust built over years rather than staged interviews.
Context & significance
Bale fighting itself sits well outside mainstream British boxing, run informally in fields and yards rather than licensed arenas, and Phil Smalley's documentary is one of the few pieces of filmmaking to take the sport seriously as a subject rather than a curiosity. The film earned a solid critical reception on release in 2024, with an IMDb rating around 7 out of 10, reflecting how effectively it turns a niche regional pastime into a character-driven story about persistence and identity.
Where & how to watch
The Beast of the Bales is available on K-Time with Farsi dubbing, and this page can be read in full without signing in. Watching the documentary itself requires a K-Time account, and the platform's interface is built in Persian for Iranian and diaspora audiences who want a fully localized streaming experience.