This request for “Under Milk Wood” came with a donation from Arizona Theatre Matters. Donations do not factor into the review or rating.

The 1954 radio drama broadcast from the BBC of Dylan Thomas’ “Under Milk Wood” is available on most platforms like public libraries and audible. The original broadcast and one from LA Theatre Works recorded later being the two main versions of this radio play. Aside from various stage and film adaptations.

Background: Dylan Thomas and Under Milk Wood

Known primarily as a poet and famous for “Do Not Go Gentle into Good Night.” The same poem Sir Michael Caine read in Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar.” Thomas died before the BBC could record “Under Milk Wood,” one year earlier. He was a welshmen with personal experience on the inner workings of the BBC, having worked with them once in 1937 and again in 1943 until his death in 1953.

The seed for “Under Milk Wood” started back in 1931. The original title was “The Town that was Mad” and about a fictional welsh town called Llareggub (buggerall spelled backwards). The town also made appearances in other works: “The Orchards” and “The Burning Baby.” A contemporary, William Faulkner, did something similar with a fictional county he named Yoknapatawpha in 1929. Faulkner was a known influence on Thomas’ works.

Neo Radio Drama

The play, having been produced during the tailend of the golden age of radio, has elements that are more visual in nature and thus don’t translate well into audio. The heavy narration combined with short, choppy dialogue makes for an interesting style blend. The best way I can describe “Under Milk Wood” is that it’s a poet’s attempt at a radio drama. Basically every word is chosen for a specific reason, but the plot and characters aren’t the focus.

Since this version was done by the non-profit Arizona Theatre Matters, it only makes sense to talk about them a bit here. Arizona Theatre Matters is an organization with a unique angle on audio dramas. They include American Sign Language (ASL) in their videos. In a world where most would use captions for the deaf or hard of hearing, it’s nice to experience something different.

Another aspect that’s different is the audio style. It sounds like an old time radio play with all the cons associated with it. The poor microphone quality and technique makes listening hard, but I think that’s intentional. Recording into a bad microphone distorts the audio. That said, phones have better mic quality now than actual microphones did even a few years ago. Because of this, it’s not that big of a leap to claim they made the audio sound bad as a stylistic choice.It’s rare to praise a show for having poor recording quality, even rarer to do it right. Unfortunately, this audio drama doesn’t quite reach that level of rarity. The peaking and distortion from most of the characters is hard to ignore, especially in scenes where they dialogue back and forth.

The Poetry of Under Milk Wood

Speaking of the dialogue, the script of this radio play doesn’t give you time to breathe. For a story one might read or perform in a college class, the format doesn’t lend itself well to the audible medium. The script isn’t much better, with quick one-sentence lines of dialogue per character being the norm. Since Dylan Thomas died before hearing its debut on radio, it’s unclear what changes he would’ve made in future works in the medium. Even following the script while listening to this version proved difficult as there’s no good stopping place. One doesn’t simply read or listen to this play like they would another work of art.

Lastly, because of the play’s unconventional structure, comprehending the plot is a struggle. In fact there’s no plot at all. it’s more slice of life vignettes set in a small town with quirky, yet undistinguishable characters on the page and behind the microphone. If not for the creativity in production value, this would have been impossible to critique using my normal metrics. Even then, this was a hard rating to quantify. You can listen to/watch it on YouTube here.

8/10 Stars