Dylan Thomas wrote this extraordinary poem to humanity in 1954. He wrote it for radio (a point I will come back to), but it then became a play, a film and even an album produced by George Martin with music by Elton John. Its a complex piece on one level seemingly an everyday tale of everyday folk in the Welsh fishing village Llareggub, on the other an extraordinary examination of the dark and murkier thoughts of those everyday folk.That Thomass take on this is somewhat cynical and world-weary is seen in the fact the village is fictional, and if you take the trouble to workout what the name spells backwards this will be reinforced. Youth Arts Leicestershire loses much of this tongue in cheek cynicism because it is performed in an astonishing way. The set, we become aware, is the bottom of the sea, presumably just off the coast or jetty near Llareggub. The young female cast of eight, we realise, are playing seaweed or some other nautical vegetation, clinging to submerged posts and rocks.As the words kick in, our troupe of eight take on all the characters (there are many), but do so in an ingenious way. Directors Robert Staunton and Rachel Lissaman must take a lot of credit. The choreography is very tight and often very beautiful, genuinely giving the impression most of the time that these things are happening under water. The conjures are conjured up by pieces of flotsam and jetsam, faces and arms renderer by ropes, life belts, an old drenched hat. Its clever and mesmeric.Where the production falls down is in the language. I return to the fact that Thomas wrote it for Radio. He also undoubtedly wrote it with his own Welsh accent in his head. Richard Burton, did the first radio broadcast of the whole poem, and was also in the film version. These lines, these extraordinary words, they need to be spoken by actors of that magnitude, actors with music in their voices and experience in their souls. Unfortunately though physically clever and expressive vocally these girls arent strong enough. Some of their voices are thin, and there was a lot of downward inflecting. Normally these would be slightly pedantic criticisms of such a young and company, but for this piece, in the end, sound and musicality is more important than action.Nonetheless, there were many hauntingly beautiful moments in this production, and should serve to send the initiated to rediscover this great poem for its own merits. If you are one of these, read it out loud. It deserves to be heard.
