On 25 January 1954, Dylan Thomas’s great radio play Under Milk Wood was broadcast, with Richard Burton as its presiding spirit, First Voice. Thomas, who died two months earlier at the age of 39, had been developing it on the hoof for years. But its final destination – in the far from certain event that there would ever be one, given that he once left the script in a Soho pub – was clear from the title he chose when he first committed part of it to print: Llareggub. A Piece for Radio Perhaps.
Under Milk Wood became a landmark drama for the BBC’s Third Programme, now Radio 3, which is marking the production’s 70th anniversary next week with a daily series of five location-specific plays, reprised in a 90-minute Saturday omnibus. The 21st century iteration of First Voice – connecting all five episodes – is Ruth Jones, co-creator and star of BBC television’s Gavin & Stacey.
