Shropshire Events and Whats On Guide

Shropshire Events and Whats On Guide

Theatre Review : Under Milk Wood

Chris Eldon Lee review Under Milk Wood, which is Clywd Theatre Cymru until Saturday 8th March and then tours; including visits to Newtown’s Theatre Hafren and Birmingham Rep.

“To begin at the beginning”. It’s 60 years now since those words were first heard on the BBC’s Third Programme. And it’s a century since their author, Dylan Thomas, was born. So there are two big chapel hat pegs on which to hang Terry Hand’s revival of his year 2000 production of Under Milk Wood. As in Llareggub, little has changed… which is excellent news.

The swirled staging, the beautiful backdrop model of the little Welsh fishing village, the circling sun, the daylong lighting plot, and indeed many of the cast, remain the just same. But this anniversary production has longer legs than before and will tour Wales and England before it’s all shipped west to the New World.

What we have this time though, is Thomas himself, played at times casually and at times biblically by Owen Teale in an unmatching, waistcoated suit and Dylan’s dishevelled, fly-away bright tie…starched to an impossibly rakish angle.

The voice is different but the delivery echoes that of Thomas himself in the New York YMCA recording of 1953. Like Thomas, Teale feels as though he’s permanently on the edge of being pissed and shambles around the stage, dropping his relentless innuendos with a twinkle. This presence of the author is an unexpected joy.

The villagers gathered around him are barefooted in rough-cut pastel clothing. They are all here. Poisoner Pugh and his wicked wife; Willy Nilly the postman, who reads all the mail and is constantly heading for the loo; and the fastidious, twice-widowed Mrs Ormore-Pritchard, droning on in an unvaryingly harsh bellow. 

The jokes are timeless and the ensemble finds fresh humour in them. As you might imagine, the funniest section is the children’s kissing game – this time with a climactic horizontal snog. Grown ups playing kids on stage is always a hoot – and the gear change to Polly Garter’s melancholic, doorstep-scrubbing song of lost love is a show stopping moment.

Of the new comers to the cast, Caryl Morgan shines in her various roles ranging from innocently seductive teenager to the loud-mouthed octogenarian who has the whole cast flinching; and Simon Nehan is lovingly comical as the Reverend Eli Jenkins, purveying Dylan’s cod-Christian poetry with complete respect.   

What’s lacking, inevitably, is the shock of the ‘new’ that riveted audiences 60 years ago. It was then a revolutionary, working class, poetical drama without a plot; delivered in scraps of scenes so short even Eastenders would go pale at the idea. And it was always meant to be heard, not seen. Yet, thankfully, Under Milk Wood has proved impossible to keep off the stage and seeing it now is like visiting a favourite, aged aunt.

Thomas’ liver didn’t survive long enough for him to hear Richard Burton on the BBC and he will never see Terry Hand’s loyal retelling of his tales. Which is a pity because this anniversary edition – with authentic Celtic actors digging their toes into good Welsh soil – is a perfect homage. But maybe, on a bar stool some where amongst the stars, Dylan might be raising a glass of flat warm Welsh beer to the countrymen who have done him so proud.   

Visit www.clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk  for bookings & information about Clwyd Theatr Cymru.