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The classic 1963 BBC Radio production

Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices

The classic 1963 full-cast BBC Radio production, starring Richard Burton

The classic 1963 full-cast BBC Radio production, starring Richard Burton 
 
'To begin at the beginning: it is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black...' 
 
When Richard Burton breathed the opening words of Under Milk Wood into a microphone, broadcasting history was made. For this 'play for voices' conjures up the intimate dreams and waking lives of the inhabitants of a Welsh seaside village in a remarkable way. It is bawdy and beautiful; its colourful characters lust and love, gossip and fantasise. Through the magic of language, Under Milk Wood creates a rich modern pastoral which, once heard, touches the listener with its poetry and haunts the imagination for ever. 
 
This radio drama is the completed version broadcast in 1963 which includes several passages that were omitted from the first recording in 1954. 
 
 
Cast and Credits 
Written by Dylan Thomas 
 
The Narrator – Richard Burton 
Captain Cat / Voice of the Guide Book – Hugh Griffith 
Rosie Probert / Lily Smalls – Gwyneth Petty 
Polly Garter / Gossamer Beynon – Margo Jenkins 
Mr Mog Edwards – Aubrey Richards 
Myfanwy Price – Margo Jenkins 
Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard – Dorothea Phillips 
Mr Ogmore / Nogood Boyo – David Garfield 
Mr Pritchard / Dai Bread / Cherry Owen – John Gill 
Mrs Dai Bread One – Guinevere Roberts 
Mrs Dai Bread Two – Patricia Mort 
Butcher Beynon – Richard Curnock 
Mrs Beynon – Olwen Brookes 
Rev Eli Jenkins – T H Evans 
Mr Pugh – Raymond Llewellyn 
Mrs Pugh / Mrs Willy Nilly – Rachel Thomas 
Willy Nilly Postman – Mervyn Johns 
Sinbad Sailors – Talfryn Thomas 
Mary Ann Sailors – Betty Lloyd-Davies 
Mrs Cherry Owen – Buddug-Mair Powell 
Mr Waldo – David Rees 
Further Cast: Julia Cleverdon, Philip Davies, Judith Davies, Elizabeth Ponsford, Billy Johnnie, Christo Dicky, Christopher Baliard, Peter Richards and Courtney Davies 
 
Produced by Douglas Cleverdon 
Songs set by Daniel Jones 
Children’s songs and singing game recorded at Albert Road Junior School, Penarth 
 
First broadcast on BBC Third Programme, 11th Oct 1963 
 
©2010 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P)2010 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Chelsea Dreaming

A quizzical look at the life and legend of celebrated poet Dylan Thomas, through the critical eyes of the infamous Chelsea Hotel. In Room 206 of the Chelsea Hotel in New York, Dylan Thomas went into the coma that led to his death. On this particular night, listening to its own ghosts and memories, the Chelsea hotel encounters Dylan Thomas. Together they chart the path of the poet's life, from the inspired work of his early years to a gradual decline into alcohol which culminated in the pathetic boast 'I have just had 18 whiskies. I think that is the record', before his final collapse. For the Chelsea, the wild behaviour, the addictions and the indulgences are irrelevant if they accompany artistic exploration. What is harder to forgive is excess to the point of destroying a unique talent. Written by D.J. Britton.

Dylan Thomas

A tour de force of oral poetry which oozes word pictures and onomatopoeic musicality

A dazzling combination of poetic fireworks and music-hall humor

Dylan Thomas...was the most musical of poets. His work is so full of rhythm and melody that one of life's great pleasures is to read him aloud, feeling those syllables roll around your mouth while the rhythms find their ebb and flow

Thomas stretches out his sentences into great, rolling, relentless waves, or crushes words together into compound coinages as the voices whisper and declaim: the play is bawdy, tragic, lyrical, sly, odd, familiar, broad and deep by turns

I'm not sure anyone really needs my opinion on 'Under Milk Wood' as Thomas wrote it. But for what it's worth I think it's brilliant - time hasn't dimmed it, his language remains bracingly wild, elemental and weird

[Thomas] conscripts metaphors, rapes the dictionary and builds a verbal bawdy-house where words mate and couple on the wing, like swifts. Nouns dress up, quite unself-consciously, as verbs, sometimes balancing three-tiered epithets on their heads and often alliterating to boot

A Play for Voices

'It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black...' 
 
Under Milk Wood tells the story of a Welsh village during one spring day. It is populated by some of the best-loved characters in British literature. Lyrical, funny, moving, it is rooted in place but with a universality that has spoken to generations of readers. A Welsh epic, a work of poetic genius, a modern classic. 
 
'A tour de force of oral poetry which oozes word pictures and onomatopoeic musicality' Guardian

Dylan Thomas

Praise for Under Milk Wood

A tour de force of oral poetry which oozes word pictures and onomatopoeic musicality

A dazzling combination of poetic fireworks and music-hall humor

Dylan Thomas...was the most musical of poets. His work is so full of rhythm and melody that one of life's great pleasures is to read him aloud, feeling those syllables roll around your mouth while the rhythms find t ...

A tour de force of oral poetry which oozes word pictures and onomatopoeic musicality

A dazzling combination of poetic fireworks and music-hall humor

Dylan Thomas...was the most musical of poets. His work is so full of rhythm and melody that one of life's great pleasures is to read him aloud, feeling those syllables roll around your mouth while the rhythms find t ...

A tour de force of oral poetry which oozes word pictures and onomatopoeic musicality

A dazzling combination of poetic fireworks and music-hall humor

Dylan Thomas...was the most musical of poets. His work is so full of rhythm and melody that one of life's great pleasures is to read him aloud, feeling those syllables roll around your mouth while the rhythms find t ...

Books by Dylan Thomas

Articles featuring Dylan Thomas

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