News Archive

Dylan Thomas Festival

The ninth Dylan Thomas Festival opens on Friday, 27 October. The annual celebration includes a mix of talks, lectures, performances, workshops, readings, music, films and exhibitions.

The festival opens with the announcement of the inaugural winner of the £60,000 EDS Dylan Thomas Prize at a special awards ceremony at the Brangwyn Hall. The winner will read from their work at the Dylan Thomas Centre the following night. Other celebrity guests include the great Welsh actor Victor Spinetti and BBC newsreader George Alagiah, who have both written books about their lives.

After the success of last year’s event, Academi and the Centre present another Readers and Writers Day with workshops, bookstalls and much more. We celebrate Vernon Watkins on his centenary with a special event and a publication of some of his writings about Swansea. There will be the premiere of a new drama adapted from Dylan’s words by Gwynne Edwards, Dylan Thomas in London, starring Peter Read as Dylan Thomas. In another special performance, Sally George takes on the roles of both Caitlin Thomas and Philip Larkin’s lifelong companion Monica Jones, in Phil Bowen’s play, The Case of the Poet.  Four poets from south west England will perform in Swansea courtesy of the Poetry promotion organisation Apples & Snakes, and there will also be poetry from Australia’s David Gilbey and Wales’ Lloyd Robson.

The Festival exhibition will be photos of Samuel Beckett (on his centenary) by celebrated photographer John Minihan, who will also talk about photographing the great man. The exhibition will also feature some Dylan Thomas–related images which have never been displayed before.

Films include a rare showing of the Dylan-scripted No Room at the Inn, and new films about Greenwich Village and the Cedar Bar Tavern, New York, celebrating their connections with Dylan and other famous poets and artists. The suit worn by Dylan Thomas during his last days in New York will be on display throughout the festival.

The annual Rhys Davies lecture will be given by Byron Rogers, who will discuss R.S. Thomas. Byron Rogers’ biography of Thomas, The Man Who Went Into the West, was recently published to great acclaim. In other talks, John Goodby talks about the influence of Yeats on Dylan Thomas, and their joint debts to Blake and Vernon Watkins, and Mel Gooding looks at the ways in which Ceri Richards was inspired by Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins.

In a special Last Thursday event, Peter Read and Terry Clarke present ‘Dylan Thomas and Friends – Poetry and Music’. After 8 years of playing Dylan Thomas, Peter Read will reveal his thoughts and feelings about his relationship with Thomas through his own poems, which will be interspersed with songs from Terry Clarke, who was influenced by Thomas’ poetry many years ago.
 
Full details of the festival and tickets are available from:

The Dylan Thomas Centre
Somerset Place
Swansea SA1 1RR
Tel: 01792 463980
Dylanthomas.lit@swansea.gov.uk www.dylanthomas.com
www.dylanthomasprize.com