Under Milk Wood and other plays

The voice of Dylan Thomas is so luscious that it sparked the audiobook business, ensnaring two young women with a tape recorder, who set out in the early '50s to record major authors reading their own works, one of whom was Dylan Thomas. They founded Caedmon Records in 1952, the first audiobook publishing company. So when I saw that the first actor in UNDER MILKWOOD was not Dylan Thomas, I groaned. "Who better?" I asked. The answer: Richard Burton. This 1954 radio drama is now more artifact than revelation. But still a pleasure. Babies bawl, doors slam, and cows are recorded mooing. We're back in Wales by "the sloeblack, slow, black, crow black, fishboat-bobbing sea." Two other programs are narrated by--you guessed it--Dylan Thomas. He's gone into that good night, but still can be heard out there in the dark, raging. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine