Under Milkwood

Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep

Completed only a month before Dylan Thomas died, Under Milk Wood is an inspired and irreverent account of life and love in a small coastal village in Wales one spring day. Full of raucous energy and lyrical passion, it is the most complete expression of Thomas' unique perspective on the human condition.

Called a play for voices by the author himself, Under Milk Wood premiered in 1953 with Thomas and five American actors reading the parts and was preserved, almost by chance, in this remarkable recording. Here is the author's greatest work rendered as he himself directed, in his own famous voice that captures the lively melodic essence of the work itself.

Featuring Dylan Thomas with Sada Thompson, Nancy Wickwire, Ray Poole, Dion Allen, and Allen F. Collins

This is the only recording ever made with Thomas in the cast, and it owes its existence to the chance thought someone had just before curtain of setting up the little tape recorder that was at hand and laying a microphone on the floor at the center of the stage. Although a studio recording for Caedmon was planned, Thomas did not live to do it. That this recording was not erased or lost or thrown away remains some kind of miracle.