Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Michael Sheen, Tom Jones, Matthew Rhys, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Tom Rhys Harries, Karl Johnson, Iwan Rheon, Aneurin Barnard, Ioan Gruffudd, Kimberley Nixon, Steffan Rhodri, Mark Lewis Jones, Richard Harrington, Sophie Evans, Melanie Walters, Griff Rhys Jones, John Rhys Davies, Andrew Howard, Rakie Ayola, Jonathan Pryce, Sian Phillips, Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins, Charlotte Church, Tom Ellis, Aneirin Hughes, Robert Pugh, Suzanne Packer, Eve Myles, Alexandra Roach, Craig Roberts, Sharon Morgan, Owen Teale, Di Botcher, Sian Thomas, Jon Tregenna.
“To begin at the beginning”…again. As celebrations on television go, they don’t come much bigger than placing one of the hugely influential and admired pieces of writing in the English language on B.B.C. as it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of arguably greatest Welsh writer of all time, Dylan Thomas, all in the one programme.
Under Milk Wood is evocative at the best of times. For anybody who has spent a couple of hours listening to Richard Burton’s recording of Dylan Thomas’ masterpiece will surely understand the sense of occasion attached to watching the B.B.C. re-recording the work, albeit in slightly truncated form, with some of the best known faces and voices in Wales today.
To begin at the beginning indeed, it’s where all stories start and for the people of the dumfounded town of Llareggub Hill, the day was bought to life by the immortal words and by Michael Sheen reprising the initial Narrator’s voice made famous by Richard Burton. The makers of this re-recording certainly chose the best voice to start the A Play for Voices and whilst everybody involved in the project deserved to be there and indeed were utterly compelling in their delivery, Michael Sheen captured the imagery needed straight from the start.
Although A Play For Voices depends on the mischievousness and gravitas of the actor’s speech in the words penned by Dylan Thomas, the star of Under Milk Wood is the imagery framed piece by piece by the poet. Nobody, perhaps with the exception of W.H. Auden, has that type of power and the impish delight in the word play is something that surely cannot be undermined with its almost perfect descriptions of people you will never meet.
With contributions by Tom Jones as Captain Cat, the delightful Eve Myles as Lily Smalls, who played her part infront of the mirror describing her love with such panache, and Jonathan Pryce and Sian Phillips as Mr and Mrs Pugh, there was so much to immerse yourself as an audience member that to close your eyes and block out every other sense except hearing would have been understandable, if just a little foolhardy.
If only the B.B.C. could have commissioned the whole play to be recorded then the programme would have been perhaps the television highlight of the year.
Ian D. Hall