Dylan Thomas Return Journey

You may have missed it for all the WWI commemorations, but it’s also the centenary of poet Dylan Thomas’s birth. This means that there are a number of Thomas-themed events at this year’s Fringe, including this show directed by none other than Anthony Hopkins. But though there’s a lilting sense of Welshness running through the show, I’d rather Dylan Thomas Return Journey were a single fare.

Bob Kingdom plays a lecturing Thomas, joining us in suit and trainers for no apparent reason other than to wax lyrical about banal moments in his life and declaim poetry as if summoning spirits. In stops and starts, he bores with insubstantial monologues and jokes which flop to the floor with an deafening thud.

What little life there is in the text is sapped out by Kingdom’s monotonous voice, which makes the whole endeavor sound like a poorly judged mid-afternoon reading on Radio 4 rather than a piece of live theatre. It’s like Sir Anthony turned up one afternoon, drank a cup of coffee and told the actor where to stand.

The poems themselves are infrequent, separated from the action by a shift in light and an increased gravity in Kingdom’s voice. They bear little relation to the main thrust of the piece, however, and fail to add anything to our understanding of the poet.

This is one for only the most hardcore Dylan Thomas aficionados. If there are any.