Dylan Thomas’ celebrated radio play has been energetically adapted to the big screen with Charlotte Church among the gallery of fun performances
The spirit of Richard Burton looms large over any rendering of Under Milk Wood: the actor’s sonorous vowels, on display in what has hitherto been considered the definitive cinematic version from 1972, somehow seem to perfectly embody Dylan Thomas’ effusive, garrulous poetry. It would be enough to put anyone off even having a go, but Rhys Ifans has stepped bravely up to the plate for this hyperactive, highly coloured adaptation directed by Kevin Allen.
Under Milk Wood, famously, originated as a radio play that Thomas wrote for the BBC, and was first broadcast in 1954 after the poet’s death. With its discursive verse style, it’s a resolutely uncinematic text, for all its evocative qualities: the addition of actual images, you would suppose, would be superfluous. Allen’s version has stuck largely to illustration: Ifans speaks melodically over the top, with intricately structured scenes and tableaux doing the visual heavy lifting.
