Under Milk Wood

During one night the audience are invited to witness the dreams of various people in the Welsh seaside town of Llaregyb including, among others, Captain Cat, Mister Waldo & Reverend Eli Jenkins. At day break the town awakes and the audience follow the townspeople going about their business until night falls again.

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.

An anthology of Dylan Thomas' work, which includes a selection of his poems, his most important short stories (including PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG) and UNDER MILK WOOD.

Under Milk Wood was originally conceived by Dylan Thomas a a radio work--"A Play for Voices"--and was first broadcast on the B.B.C. Third Programme in January 1954, two months after his death. But during the three or four years that he was working on it, he made various revisions for solo performances and stage readings of the incomplete script. As a result, there are no less than eleven versions in which the text differs in greater or lesser degree. But none of them can rank as the definitive text of this world-famous work, which has been translated into well over a dozen languages, including Serbo-Croat, Japanese and even Welsh. Douglas Cleverdon was associated with Under Milk Wood from its beginnings, first produced it for radio, subsequently co-directed the stage production at the Edinburgh Festival and in the West End, and finally directed it on Broadway. Better than any other living man, he is qualified both to analyze the textual variations and to trace the complicated--and occasionally hilarious--development of the script. The first part of the volume describes the outstanding achievements of Dylan Thomas in radio, as actor, poetry-reader and writer; and recounts the history of Under Milk Wood after an amateur dramatic performance in Laugharne in 1939, through the tribulations of his last years, when debts and drinking and recital tours inhibited him from concentration on his writing, to the publication of the 1958 Acting Edition. The second part contains an analysis of all the textual variants in the eleven versions (which comprise published texts, duplicated typescripts for performances, and recordings). The analysis includes punctuation and the line indentations that affect the tempo and the rhythm of dramatic production. It is hoped that the meticulous attention to detail is justified by the interest shown throughout the world in the writings of Dylan Thomas.

A dazzling collection of prose from one of the greatest poets and storytellers of the twentieth century.