'UNDER Milk Wood', Dylan Thomas's famous 'play for voices' is running at the Courtyard Theatre from October 9-13.

The play is directed by David Thomas who has been directing and acting for the Wye Theatre Company (formerly the Wye Players) for over thirty years. He has also written much of the material for their triennial comic show, 'Cloisterphobia', performed as a late night revue during the week of the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford.

He last directed 'Under Milk Wood' 17 years ago when it achieved great success playing to packed houses at the old Nell Gwynne theatre. This new production promises to be no less successful although it is being staged in a very different way with most of the actors playing several different roles. The quick changes are largely effected by varying the characteristics of voice and posture, with only superficial additions to costume.

The play's structure is unique. Characters do not develop via the turnings of plot and story but are revealed, precisely and instantly recognisable in all their foibles and failings, as parts of a moving pageant. Their actions - and reactions - represent the typical pattern of a single spring day in the small Welsh fishing village of Llareggub. If 'Under Milk Wood' were a painting, the characteristics of each of the figures in its landscape would have been captured with a few deft brush strokes.

The charm and humour of the play consist in the author's confidence that its audience, even though none of its members may ever have visited anywhere remotely like Llareggub, will immediately recognise in each briefly sketched character, a true likeness.