Dylan Thomas

a play for voices

Under milk wood

Commissioned by the BBC, and described by Dylan Thomas as 'a play for voices', UNDER MILK WOOD takes the form of an emotive and hilarious account of a spring day in the fictional Welsh seaside village of Llareggub. We learn of the inhabitants' dreams and desires, their loves and regrets. The play introduces us to characters such as Captain Cat who dreams of his drowned former seafellows and Nogood Boyo who dreams of nothing at all. It is a unique and touching depiction of a village that has 'fallen head over bells in love'. The First Voice narration reveals the ordinary world of daily happenings and events, while the Second Voice conveys the intimate, innermost thoughts of the fascinating folk of Llareggub. There have been myriad productions of UNDER MILK WOOD over the years and Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Elizabeth Taylor, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Tom Jones have all starred in radio, stage or film adaptations. Dylan Thomas's classic radio play reprinted to celebrate the centenary of his birth. A true masterpiece that has never been out of print.

Under Milk Wood

Edward Steel

Gabe Cortez

Read this in year 10 for literature class- loved it! Both funny and serious in its language and subject matter.

Maddy Ritchie

Trever

There's some cute wordplay and interesting mood here, but I feel like it would work better performed/recorded/broadcast than as something to read.

Emmett

Words are overlapping echoes, a babbling hush of voices like the lapping of the sea against rocks and sand. In them, the characters live their coloured dreams and muted torments. Appropriately subtitled 'a play for voices', Under Milk Wood is best rendered when read aloud, giving full expression to its poetic music. One thing I admire most of Dylan Thomas is his dexterity in handling language; his instincts for rhyme, colour are equal to the mastery of Burgess and Joyce. Thomasian language is feeling and playfulness, and bitter poignancy; it conveys every trembling thread of sentiment, right down to the void of nothing. In this poem-play, Thomas renders with all sensitivity and honesty lives in as many ways as life can be lived - splendidly, dully, in secret, openly, sensitively, blithely. His diction is dreamlike and diamond-sharp - a single, acute sentence opens up yet another dark, glimmering facet of an otherwise small-town nobody: a reverend who delights in poetry and dips his pen in cocoa composing verse, and a retired, hardened sea captain who mourns his deceased love, the headmistress and the sailor who maintain an erotic mutual attraction that is never spoken of. Placidity is gossamer thin, punctured/punctuated by thoughts of sex and murder. It is an acute picture of life in its shades of pleasure and unannounced pain.

"SECOND VOICE: Gossamer Beynon high-heels out of school. The sun hums down through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of her heart and buzzes in the honey there and couches and kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast. Eyes run from the trees and windows of the street, steaming 'Gossamer', and strip her to the nipples and the bees. She blazes naked past the Sailors Arms ... Sinbad Sailor places on her thighs still dewdamp from the first mangrowing cock-crow garden his reverent goat-bearded hands."

"FIRST VOICE:
Mr Pugh, in the School House opposite, takes up the morning tea to Mrs Pugh, and whispers on the stairs.

MR. PUGH:
Here's your arsenic, dear.
And your weedkiller biscuit.
I've throttled your parakeet.
I've spat in your vases.
I've put cheese in the mouseholes.
Here's your...
... nice tea, dear.

MRS PUGH:
Too much sugar.

MR PUGH:
You haven't tasted it yet, dear."

Under milk wood a play for voices

Reviews

Highlights