Guy Masterson:
Fern Hill
Friday 26 September
In this fiftieth anniversary year of Dylan Thomas's death, maybe it's time to be reminded of the power and richness of his writing. He is a poet who has been rather out of fashion but clearly we are due for a Dylan Thomas revival, and any dissenters would be converted by Guy Masterson's powerful and captivating performance on Friday 26 September at the Studio in the Gala Theatre.
Not reading, but performing the memorised pieces, Masterson started with the short story Holiday Memory - which he said reminded him of his own childhood in South Wales - using the full space inside the semicircle of audience to act out the story. Then the poem The force that through the green fuse drives the flower led a sequence of poems and the first half concluded with another story: A Visit to Grandpa's.
The second half started with the pair of poems Death shall have no dominion and Do not go gentle into that good night, and continued, including In my craft or sullen art and the final poem of the evening, Fern Hill, then A child's Christmas in Wales concluded triumphantly.
Afterwards, many of the audience lingered to buy the books as well as advance copies of the two CDs that Guy Masterson has recorded: Under Milk Wood and Fern Hill.
Peter Lathan of the British Theatre Guide wrote a very favourable review which concluded: "It is a tour de force which made the eighty minutes or so pass so quickly that the audience lost all sense of time. He has performed the piece hundreds of times and has clearly been developing and refining it as he has done so. In 2001 and I gave it four stars: now it deserves five!"
