Dylan Thomas Day - Mon 5 May

[Guest]

Dylan Thomas wrote the theme poem for The Radio 3 Forum.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Padraig]

Dylan Thomas wrote the theme poem for The Radio 3 Forum.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

DT is right -
The Forum has to fight.
Come and join the throng;
HG, you know there's something wrong.

[Ariosto]

In my humble and totally useless opinion, I think DT is one of the three greatest writers and poets of the English language. Under Milk Wood is a work of genius. The version using the original Voice Over by Burton and with Welsh actors and musicians is incredibly good. (Made about 6+ years ago).

[frankwm]

Some joined-up thinking might've led to a repeat of Bob Kingdom's "Return Journey" show, (possibly on BBC R4extra) - that Radio 4 broadcast as a Friday Play (18 June 1999) recorded at the Brighton Festival that year.
Very worthwhile and entertaining (still being toured?) - but maybe the BBC wiped their tape - or are too mean to pay any re-broadcast fees..

[Anna]

I thought the Dylan centenary was to be co-ordinated across the BBC but here in Wales on BBC1 Wednesday we had a new drama by Andrew Davies about Dylan's last days in New York with Tom Hollander playing Dylan and on Monday, also BBC1, we have a new production of Under Milk Wood. Neither programmes are so far scheduled for a wider BBC audience which is a shame for Dylan fans.

[ardcarp]

Words and Music was fun today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042bh35

The poem 'Lament' was just amazing! [It comes just after the Male Voice Choir, about 33 minutes in, beginning, "When I was a windy boy".] It seemed to owe something to Edith Sitwell...but was wonderfully suggestive in its imagery.

[aeolium]

The Sunday Feature on DT the Radio Poet was interesting and informative in parts, not least for revealing how badly the BBC seems to have treated him - apart from the inimitable Douglas Cleverdon, perhaps the greatest producer the BBC (or any other broadcasting company) has ever had. It was extraordinary to learn that it was only through Cleverdon guaranteeing the BBC against loss with his own money - to be paid through deductions from his salary - that the BBC agreed to commission the production of Under Milk Wood. And there were many arguments and incidents where DT was underpaid and asked to do work for much less than others would have been paid. It gives an insight - which I don't recall coming out in Humphrey Carpenter's book The Envy of the World - of how much the BBC as a whole, and also the Third, was dominated by prejudices about class and background. That said, DT was given a lot of radio work, and it's only a shame more of it has not survived. From the extracts in this programme, though, there do appear to be recordings of the superb Return Journey and also DT, with Richard Burton in a minor role, in David Jones' In Parenthesis. Why not rebroadcast the whole of these recordings as part of the BBC's commemoration of DT?

[Thropplenoggin]

Most of the poetry readings were appalling: why not let the great man read his own works? Plenty of recordings of him doing so.

I learned nothing that the biographies haven't already divulged in greater eloquence and detail. A missed opportunity from one of our most musical poets.

[ardcarp]

Well Throps, if you're talking of The Sunday Feature, I for one enjoyed it. It was a great idea to have it presented by (the ordinary sounding but with hidden depths) Rachel Tresize, winner of the new DT Prize. I guess too that the poetry readings were deliberately 'ordinary', i.e. not read by an actOR. Good also to include someone who had known DT. I have no specialist knowledge of things literary, so I learned a lot from the broadcast. Interesting that Reith's 'mission statement' for the Third Programme bore this fruit, albeit via Douglas Cleverdon's persistence.

[Anna]

I was going to post about the Sunday Feature but ardcarp has beaten me to it. Unfortunately I missed the first 10 minutes (will catch up) but thought it was the best thing broadcast in the DT centenary celebrations so far by miles and, to me, extremely interesting to learn of his relationship with the BBC. I had no problems with any aspect of the programme

[Thropplenoggin]

I don't require an actor to read them, simply someone who understands metre and rhythm, internal rhymes, half-rhymes, etc., all fundamentals of Thomas's work.

[mercia]

I was only half listening but on Essential Classics this morning I think Andrew Motion said there had been a change over time in the style of reading poetry, having just been played a recording of Thomas himself reading, which Motion described as like chanting.

[Flay]

I was only half listening but on Essential Classics this morning I think Andrew Motion said there had been a change over time in the style of reading poetry, having just been played a recording of Thomas himself reading, which Motion described as like chanting.

Yes, he implied that previously poets in general used to "chant" their works when reciting them.

[ardcarp]

I take your point Throps. One thinks of:

Tennyson (on phongraph) doing The Charge
Sitwell doing Facade
Legg doing Auden's Night Mail

No doubt the Ancient Greeks chanted their stuff too.

Presumably fashions in poetry recital have changed in the same way as solo singing styles. Would anyone nowadays sing Messiah as did Heddle Nash, wonderful though it was?

[Don Petter]

I take your point Throps. One thinks of:

Tennyson (on phongraph) doing The Charge
Sitwell doing Facade
Legg doing Auden's Night Mail

No doubt the Ancient Greeks chanted their stuff too.

Presumably fashions in poetry recital have changed in the same way as solo singing styles. Would anyone nowadays sing Messiah as did Heddle Nash, wonderful though it was?

I think Facade is a special case, as it needs to be read 'straight' to have its multi-facetted effect. Dame Edith reading her 'Still Falls the Rain' might be a fairer example?