Review of Loft Theatre Company production of Under Milk Wood (2014)

Here were all the makings for grand theatricality. The Dylan Thomas centenary provided an obvious golden opportunity to revive his most iconic work and allow the Welsh boyo free rein once more to pour out his lyrical prose, poetry and song.

It’s a chance that the Loft was not going to overlook – or to squander. Though some have argued over the years that the piece is essentially radio material for audiences to develop their own pictures, Milk Wood presents some glorious visual challenges for stage production.

Richard Moore’s splendid set design packs all the quirky surrealism of Thomas’s oddball back-to-front fishing village and fits like a glove with some brilliantly imaginative video projection. The result is a feast for the eyes and a truly atmospheric framework within which to scrutinise the everyday lives, loves, plots, betrayals and sexual romps of the colourful locals.

It’s a triumph too for the lighting team as we edge forward from the seaweed-and-breakfast start into the brighter light of a spring day and the later inevitability of dusk and fading dreams.

Emerging through it all are the people – the gaggle of gandering wives, the butcher, the reverend, the postman, the tart, the haunted widow et al. They are deliciously brought to life under the astute direction of Tim Willis by a fine ensemble team of players who handle the comedy, the irony and the pathos with equal measures of skill.

The symbolism underlying all these elements is most effectively realised when the village’s blind old seadog Captain Cat communicates with his long-lost ghostly lover Rosie Probert, a scene played with touching sensitivity by Bryan Ferriman and Kate Willis.

Although the author’s passion for words sometimes reaches avalanche proportions, the power of the prose and the poetry cannot be denied. It is clearly relished in the narrative readings by Jeremy Heynes and Sue Moore but, although delivered with eloquence, these carry no hint of Welsh intonation and thus feel somewhat strangely removed from the rest.

Would Mr Thomas have approved?

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Peter McGarry is an experienced, independent professional theatre critic who has agreed to review Loft Theatre Company productions.

The agreement with the Loft is that Peter is free to express his opinions for good or ill. The Loft Theatre Company has no control whatsoever over the content of these reviews and will never comment publicly on what he writes.