Under Milk Wood

Dark Longings

Under Milk Wood

by Dylan Thomas

Questors Productions at the Questors Studio, Ealing, until 14^thJune

Review by Eleanor Lewis

In these times of limitless internet shopping opportunities, locating a draper is still surprisingly difficult, but locating a “draper mad with love” would probably be off the agenda completely had you not happened upon the latest production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood at the Questors Studio.

Fortunate it is then that this play, written in 1953 for radio, is available to experience this week. It’s a work to be experienced, rather than watched, as it was originally written for the radio and director Simon Roberts has cleverly decided to stage the whole thing in the dark with nine actors clad in black, seated in two rows silhouetted against a gently lit back wall. The players sit, stand, make small gestures and movements but overall the focus is on the voices as Dylan intended.

The work is a poem as much as any kind of a play, the richness of the language tends to live in the memories of those who hear it, “bible black”, “slow, black, sloe black fishing-boat-bobbing sea” and more. The characters emerge naturally from the wealth of description to people the fictional seaside village of Llareggub, and their lives, loves, dreams and regrets are set out for us to follow over the course of a day.

Under Milk Wood is studied in schools and often performed, its characters familiar: Mrs Ogmore Pritchard, widowed but still harassing both her deceased husbands whilst maintaining a forensically clean house; Captain Cat still longing in old age to “shipwreck in the thighs” of his dead lover Rosie Probert; Mr Pugh, yearning to murder his hectoring wife but too terrified to act. There is a lot of yearning and longing in Llareggub, the village is drenched in it but lives go on nonetheless, people gossip and laugh, washing is hung, meals prepared. The villagers are, in the words of the Rev Eli Jenkins “not wholly bad or good who live our lives under Milk Wood”, which could be said for most of us even if we’re not as lyrically presented as Thomas’ characters.

This is most definitely an ensemble performance and it works beautifully. Nine actors play several characters each, but each character is clearly delineated and the pace of the interaction between all of the characters is brisk so that there appears to be a village full of individuals. It is, as a whole, a skilled and professional performance.

The enveloping darkness in the studio creates a cosy atmosphere and strips away all distraction from the voices. It evokes the sensation of time travel back to an era when things were possibly less complicated (were they in fact?) and the unintrusive sound of a dog barking in the distance and other tiny sound details carefully enhance pictures forming in the mind. To that end, Lighting Designers Andrew Whadcoat and Mark White, together with Sound Designer Mike Wyer did a great job.

It seems paradoxical to note that the Welsh accents were a little inconsistent when this was hardly noticeable (to this reviewer at least) and therefore did not detract from the whole, but at the same time Under Milk Wood is entirely and absolutely Welsh to the core, you do need the accent and the natural, melodious rhythm of it so perhaps a heavier concentration on this is needed, but Questors’ performers are skilled enough and Dylan’s poetry sufficiently vivid to work anyway.

This is a delightful production directed with understanding and intelligence and very well performed, a real team effort! Go along, wrap yourself up in the dark and relax.

Eleanor Lewis, June 2025

Photography by Kanako Hata