Summary
Dylan Thomas, arguably Wales's most famous poet, comes under scrutiny on Great Lives.
A man famous both for his linguistic exuberance and his chaotic, alcohol-fuelled private life, Thomas is proposed by another Welsh poet, Owen Sheers.
Owen, the author of ‘Resistance’, is one of Britain's brightest young writers and keen to bust some myths about his fellow Welshman's reputation.
Joining Owen and presenter Matthew Parris is Damian Walford-Davies of Aberystwyth University.
Featuring archive recordings of Dylan Thomas's unmistakable voice, and Richard Burton reading the opening of ‘Under Milk Wood’.
Specially recorded at Bristol's ‘More Than Words’ Listening Festival in 2012.
Producer: Miles Warde
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2012.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this great lives podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:04.0 | For more information and details of other podcasts just visit BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | co. UK slash radio 4. |
| 0:11.0 | Hello and welcome to Bristol and to the More Than Words Festival, Radio 4's first ever listening |
| 0:18.2 | festival. |
| 0:19.6 | Our subject on Great Lives is a Word Smith, a brilliant writer of plays and verse whose work has in the six |
| 0:26.6 | decades since his death been largely overwhelmed by the myths that surround his life. I think it's fair to say that as a writer he's |
| 0:34.9 | been a bit out of fashion but to me he's a genius. So I'm delighted that |
| 0:40.3 | Dylan Thomas or Blubber-lipped Guisbury-eyed Welsh poet Thomas as Time magazine so rudely described him just before he died is our great life today. |
| 0:51.0 | Perhaps and perhaps tediously as famous for his wild boy drinking as for his |
| 0:56.6 | literary output, Thomas was only 39 at the time of his death, but not before he'd written |
| 1:02.1 | this, under Milkwood, the opening read here by |
| 1:06.1 | his fellow countryman Richard Burton. |
| 1:09.6 | To begin at the beginning, it is spring, moonless night in the small town, Starless and Bible black, |
| 1:19.5 | the cobble streets silent and the hunched quarters and rabbits |
| 1:23.0 | would limping invisible down to the slow black, slow black |
| 1:28.8 | crow black fishing boat bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles, though moles see fine tonight in |
| 1:37.1 | the snouting velvet dingles, or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump |
| 1:42.4 | and the town clock, the shops in mourning, |
| 1:45.4 | the wealthy hall in widow's weeds, and all the people of the lulled and dumb-found town are |
| 1:52.2 | sleeping now. |
| 1:55.0 | Hush, the babies are sleeping, |
... |
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