"To begin at the beginning..."

At first Dylan Thomas's 'play for voices' 'Under Milk Wood' seemed far removed from the sort of things I've been reading recently, especially Amis's 'Money'. Though there is a similar delight in the playful manipulation of language, the colourful characters appear straightforwardly comic, treated with fondness and not distanced disgust, and the evocative lyricism of the opening, as the town of Llaregyb sleeps, is wonderful. But gradually Thomas has the characters reveal their darker sides and inner secrets, most being obsessed with past or hoped-for sexual encounters - though Mr Pugh fantasises about murdering his nagging wife and avidly reads 'Lives Of The Great Poisoners', telling her it's called 'Lives Of The Great Saints'. My only disappointment is that Thomas died before having the chance to make any revisions, a sense of the play's unfinishedness coming from the abruptness of the conclusion.

It's not hard to see what The Coral have found so inspiring about 'Under Milk Wood' - the dissatisfied and ultimately suicidal daydreamer Bill McCai, for instance, owes a lot to Thomas's style of characterisation. Similarly, the amusing eccentricities and rather more murky preoccupations of the inhabitants of Llaregyb appear as something of an influential precursor to the likes of 'The League Of Gentlemen' - even to the extent that there is uncertainty over the precise nature and origins of Butcher Beynon's meat. Hilary Briss is not without his predecessors, it seems.