Riverfront, Newport
Fri 23 Sept
words: AMELIA FORSBROOK
★★★★☆
In research out this week, Cambridge University academic Dr Louise Joy explained why us grown-ups love children’s books. To Joy, such works of fiction present the kind of interactions we miss in the real world as they transport us to a place where communication is simple. We find comfort in how interactions are uncomplicated and feel reassured by worlds that welcome eccentrics.
In their delightfully visual adaptation of Under Milk Wood, Ballet Cymru have found a way to celebrate the quirkiness of an adult world with all the charm and comfort of a children’s book. On-stage throughout the entire duration of this piece, Gwyn Vaughan Jones narrates Dylan Thomas’ delicious play with an unquestionable warmth. As he does this the dancers ornament the richly textual fictional world of Llareggub, matching the words in their charm and colour.
Set against a frequently-changing digital background of amateur rural paintings, Under Milk Wood is the strongest ballet I’ve ever come across. Simultaneously innovative and charmingly reminiscent of a 1950s Wales, the piece is a soothing introduction to the dreams of a town. Yet in its eccentricity, there is a familiarity to the themes within the story – just read the settlement’s name backwards and see the general comment Thomas is making about Welsh towns.
And in the day spent in this emphatically fictional Llareggub, we are introduced to an entire town with in all its variety. Children play hopscotch, lovers throw leeks, a reverend reads out bad poetry. Llareggub is a settlement built on a foundation of gossip, and the dancers communicate this well as they merrily take on different characters and furnish the narrative with brief tuneful moments and thrillingly animated mime. This thrilling attention to detail is matched with an odd kind of innocence as words and movements lull the viewer into a dreamlike state which matches the sleeping worlds its characters inhabit.
Ballet Cymru’s Under Milk Wood certainly does exhibit lashings of the comforting type of narrative style that we recognise from children’s books. But with captivating presentations of married life and enamouring insights into sexual fantasy, this lively piece is definitely made for adults.