Milk money

THE 50th anniversary of the radio broadcast of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas has created great excitement in Wales, particularly when there appeared to be doubts that the famous work could ever be tackled on stage.

Internationally renowned director Michael Bogdanov begs to differ. In fact he reveals that Thomas' best-known piece of poetry started life as a stageplay in New York - an early version made a world premiere tour to Newcastle's Theatre Royal back in 1956.

Now Bogdanov is bringing his Wales Theatre Company back to Tyneside next week and he stresses that it is the kind of work a national theatre for the country should be tackling... if the Welsh Assembly ever comes up with the funding.

Swansea, the area where Thomas was born, funded the project and Bogdanov says: "It was the ideal time to do the production. I've done productions before, one in Dublin almost 40 years ago when I was a student in 1966. To me Thomas is the great lyric poet of the 20th Century and I lived with his poetry since I was small.

"It's an astonishing piece of work because of the quality of the language. It is absolutely scurrilous, full of humour, compassion, it's like a cascade of images and words tumbling out juxtaposed together in an extraordinary way.

"The quality of the language is absolutely amazing. I love it for that and I love it for the picture it presents of the world in microcosm with all its foibles and complexes and eccentricities and loves and hates. It's a wonderful piece."

He feels there's a silly pressure attached to Under Milk Wood that really annoys him.

"So many people say it's a radio play and can't be done on stage, ignoring the fact it's done thousands and thousands of times on stage with enormous success and it's only done occasionally on radio. The first two readings were stage readings with Thomas himself taking the role of the first voice, and both were in New York about four or five months apart. It's a crazy argument, it's like saying you can't turn a book into a film or a film into a musical."

Bogdanov has used the 1954 version by Dan Jones and added half-a-dozen Welsh songs to the production.

He wanted to display the extraordinary depth of Welsh singing ability which meant it wasn't too difficult to find six or seven cast members who could act and sing.

But the director, who is in demand to leave Wales to direct in the US and Germany, is critical of his fellow countryman's attitude towards theatre. He adds: "Particularly in Wales, the history of English language theatre here is a total disaster and continues to be, but we've got a little money to do a project this autumn - two Shakespeares at the Ludlow festival, Cymbaline and Twelfth Night."

He grumbles about Terry Hands, who runs Clywd Theatr Cymru, landing "£100,000 he shouldn't have done from a fund earmarked for other projects".

"Quite honestly there isn't any funding available for new companies. There is a big review under way at the moment and there are hopes that this will produce something, but it will still depend on the will of the Welsh Assembly to put some money up and I'm afraid that will is not necessarily there. They are a notorious bunch of philistines, music can do no wrong but theatre isn't just a poor relation, it doesn't exist."

Despite having clinched a Director Of The Year award in 1979 after helming eight productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bogdanov feels that he wouldn't have been the right man to take over from Adrian Noble last year and feels Michael Boyd "will make a fist of it".

"I think the RSC needs a fresh approach and possibly someone from outside the organisation to come in without any of the hang-ups of the traditions and sort it out. That will have to wait until next time now. I thought that whole theme park-Disneyland idea from Adrian Noble was crazy, but what does need doing is revamping the auditorium and stage" he adds.

Meanwhile, Bogdanov regards Newcastle Theatre Royal as a marvellous testament to the building of people's theatres which were a matter of civic pride.

Meanwhile, he follows directing Shakespeare with a musical on Broadway called Lone Star Love or The Merry Wives Of Windsor Texas which is set just after the American Civil War.

One workshop has already involved "an old friend" Whoopi Goldberg while Jay O Sanders, the well-known US actor, is booked to play Falstaff.

The director who has worked at the Royal National Theatre before taking charge of Germany's National Theatre and launching the English Shakespeare Company now spends his time touring the world as a freelance director.

He jokes about Under Milk Wood "some people would say 'Christ we don't want him anywhere it'", but admits that his ambition is to spend more time in Cardiff with his two small children.

"I want to get a proper company off the ground in South Wales, whether it's called the national theatre or not I don't care. But at the moment if I do theatre at the standard I want to work at then I have to leave."

* Under Milk Wood runs at Newcastle Theatre Royal from Tuesday until Saturday. Box Office: 0870 905 5060.

Published: 03/06/2004