Dylan Thomas: Return Journey is a one-man show with actor/writer Bob Kingdom playing Thomas during his last lecture tour, which ended in New York City days before he died.
Bob Kingdom has been performing this show since the early 1990s, so it comes as no surprise that he is word perfect. That said, the opposite might have been the case and the boredom of repetition might have set in. Not at all. This felt fresh and new and the performance was delivered with relish and great empathy for its subject.
The Attic @ The Pleasance is a small space and, as the name suggests, is at the top of the building, reminding one audience member of having to climb to the top of his school building to reach the science labs. It was well worth the climb. And the size of the space lends an intimacy to the story of Thomas’s life in small snapshots of remembrance.
Through Dylan Thomas: Return Journey we are taken back to Thomas’s childhood and through his own words come to understand the dual nature of the man: creative genius with an active self-destruct button. The tale of the charabanc trip with the men of the town, an excuse for binge-drinking without the women-folk around, is funny and poignant and perhaps laid the trail for Thomas’s own excesses that may well have led to his final illness and death. Knowing that he died just days after the end of his American lecture tour and after allegedly drinking up to 18 straight whiskies in the famous White Horse Tavern adds yet more layers to the early years of his life.
Other episodes are outlined in less detail but are amply encompassed by Thomas’s own poems, recited with such heartfelt tenderness by Kingdom that I wanted immediately to go back to my poetry books and look them all up and appreciate them more fully this time.
Dylan Thomas: Return Journey is a brilliant play, delivered with great sincerity and love for its protagonist. It’s been doing the rounds for donkeys, garnering highly deserved accolades along the way and who am I to argue with Sir Anthony Hopkins, who gave the original direction to the piece and who said: “Bob Kingdom not only identifies with Dylan Thomas but sometimes, and often, the two personalities seem to merge. It is a remarkable performance.”
Listings and ticket information can be found here
