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 Product Description
To begin at the beginning: it is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloe black, slow, black, crow black fishing boat-bobbing sea. [...] And all the people of the lulled and dumbfounded town are sleeping now. Subtitled "A Play for Voices", Dylan Thomas's best known work, Under Milk Wood, carries the double legacy of the author's extensive work for radio--a medium for which, like the very different Samuel Beckett, he had an almost intuitive grasp--and his skill and ability as a poet. A polyphonic evocation of a day in the life of an imaginary small Welsh seaside town, Thomas's play--"a green leaved sermon on the innocence of men"--visits in turn the inhabitants of Llareggub (read it backwards for the joke) while they sleep, when they wake and go about their daily activities, as the night falls. Balancing a rhythmic, densely poetic language with a nuanced ear for the musical cadences of speech, the play's gentle, affectionate charm and humour resonate to create a deeply textured portrait of a community responding almost mythically to the awakening of spring. The introduction to this new edition details the book's slow genesis and reveals a more serious aspect of Thomas's creation--it was composed in part as a response to the terrible inheritance of World War II--in which the affirmative, redemptive cast of the play carries a moral dimension, an imaginative, lyrical empathy for the regenerative innocence of the average human being and their capacity for grace. Llareggub becomes a space in which eccentricity is tolerated, sin is forgiven and love is nurtured--or at least dreamt about and possible. Thomas has a democratic compassion for the small dramas of the everyday and a belief that what is commonplace unites us, all underscored by the transformative power of the language he bestows on each inhabitant. His characters--Captain Cat, Myfanwy Price, Organ Morgan, Willy Nilly the Postman, Polly Garter, Dai Bread, and others--generously animated and blessed by their author, have entered many people's affection and literary memory. In this light, it is easy to see why Under Milk Wood has remained one of the best-loved works of the 20th century and one of the great plays for radio. --Burhan Tufail
Customer Reviews
Pure Delight, 22 Nov 2007
This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.
This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.
I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.
A masterpiece. Hunting on pig-back, he shoots down the wild giblets, 24 Aug 2006
Excellent - improves every time I listen to it.
Don't be put off by the arty context its easy to listen to... Original 1954 recording with Richard Burton, all-Welsh cast., 04 Jan 2006
Written as a "play for voices" for the BBC, this historic audiotape features the all-Welsh cast of the original BBC production from 1954. Richard Burton is the First Voice, which connects all the characters, played by twenty-eight men, women, and children. With perfect diction and the sense of character which only a great actor can convey, Burton rolls his R's, modulates his voice in pitch and intensity, and makes Thomas's poetry come fully alive--full of alliteration and various kinds of rhyme, with nouns and adjectives used as verbs to convey action and sense impressions simultaneously, and always a wry humor and honesty of feeling. Depicting one full day in the life of a small town in Wales, Thomas shows its motley residents as they awaken, perform their daily tasks, socialize, gossip, and daydream about the past that might have been and the future that may yet hold hope. When night falls and the residents retire, their losses and disappointments, along with their escapes into dreams, are given voice and poignancy. Polly Garter, with her numerous children by numerous fathers, dreams of Willie, a very small man who was the love of her life. Captain Cat, the blind bell-ringer, thinks of all the sailors he knew who died at sea. Mr. Pugh dreams of poisoning his wife, and young Gwenny, who has extorted pennies from the little boys who do NOT want to kiss her, plans for the next day and more pennies. The sound effects provide context for the drama without overpowering the narrative--a cock's crow, the clip-clop of horses, the bark of dogs, footsteps, the sea, bell buoys--and simple songs add to the realism and the sense of character and place. A mournful tune performed by Polly Garter in a minor key, as she remembers Willie and compares him to her other lovers, is beautifully sung by Diana Maddox, her clear, bell-like voice and almost palpable sadness making her one of the most memorable of the characters. A humorous children's singing game, sung by local school children, gives added realism, and little Gwenny's song to three very young boys is delightfully cheeky. Both enchanting and historically important, this memorable recording is worth seeking through Used sites or through amazon.co.uk--the best recording ever made of this wonderful "play for voices." Mary Whipple
Five Stars For Captain Cat, 21 Jul 2004
Under Milk Wood seems to be very out of fashion at the moment, maybe suffering from a hangover of being so popular in the 1970s. I don't think any schools or universities put it on their reading lists these days.
It is colloquial, but at the same time universally appealing. The lyricism of the language is so nice to read. And there's a bit of everything here, sadness, love, humour, marriage, poisoning, dreams. In its themes it is rather like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, with the difference that Under Milk Wood is always a pleasure to read and never frustrates.
This play maybe sad in tone, but is never maudlin or cynical.
It concentrates on small town life, and small town squalor but is never political. Overall it's a very affectionate book.
A great performance of a truly great work, 24 Oct 2003
Under Milk Wood is one of the finest examples of writing you will ever read, or in this case hear. Words of such depth, lilt and lyrical rhythm that they take the breath away. It is genuinely difficult to find terms that do this masterpiece of the English language justice - so I will not try, just listen and be entranced by the magic of Dylan Thomas's unique genius.
To find a recording of this work that does it justice is rare indeed - and the BBC production on these CDs is as close to perfection as I have ever heard. This is the "Under Milk Wood" by which all others are judged and found wanting. Buy it. Listen to it. Please.
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Product Description
Alan Bennett's award-winning series of six television monologues, Talking Heads, may have been first aired in 1988, but over a decade later it is still impossible to read these deeply moving and affectionate scripts without hearing the voices of the actors who played them. Maggie Smith as the alcoholic vicar's wife finding a semblance of happiness in an affair with an Indian shop owner, Patricia Routledge as the poisonous neighbour, Julie Walters as the over-the-hill dolly bird auditioning for a porn film and of course Thora Hird as Doris, the old lady alone in her home having fallen and broken her hip. All great performances and all made possible by Bennett's wonderfully observant and poignant scripts. Bennett rightly notes in his introduction to the pieces that, maybe apart from Doris, his narrators are artless in that they "don't quite know what they are saying and are telling a story to the meaning of which they are not entirely privy". But through their artlessnes they reveal more about Britain today and the stresses and strains placed upon ordinary people, than any number of docu-soaps that now claim to show us real life. --Nick Wroe
Customer Reviews
Pure Delight, 22 Nov 2007
This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.
This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.
I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.
A masterpiece. Hunting on pig-back, he shoots down the wild giblets, 24 Aug 2006
Excellent - improves every time I listen to it.
Don't be put off by the arty context its easy to listen to... Original 1954 recording with Richard Burton, all-Welsh cast., 04 Jan 2006
Written as a "play for voices" for the BBC, this historic audiotape features the all-Welsh cast of the original BBC production from 1954. Richard Burton is the First Voice, which connects all the characters, played by twenty-eight men, women, and children. With perfect diction and the sense of character which only a great actor can convey, Burton rolls his R's, modulates his voice in pitch and intensity, and makes Thomas's poetry come fully alive--full of alliteration and various kinds of rhyme, with nouns and adjectives used as verbs to convey action and sense impressions simultaneously, and always a wry humor and honesty of feeling. Depicting one full day in the life of a small town in Wales, Thomas shows its motley residents as they awaken, perform their daily tasks, socialize, gossip, and daydream about the past that might have been and the future that may yet hold hope. When night falls and the residents retire, their losses and disappointments, along with their escapes into dreams, are given voice and poignancy. Polly Garter, with her numerous children by numerous fathers, dreams of Willie, a very small man who was the love of her life. Captain Cat, the blind bell-ringer, thinks of all the sailors he knew who died at sea. Mr. Pugh dreams of poisoning his wife, and young Gwenny, who has extorted pennies from the little boys who do NOT want to kiss her, plans for the next day and more pennies. The sound effects provide context for the drama without overpowering the narrative--a cock's crow, the clip-clop of horses, the bark of dogs, footsteps, the sea, bell buoys--and simple songs add to the realism and the sense of character and place. A mournful tune performed by Polly Garter in a minor key, as she remembers Willie and compares him to her other lovers, is beautifully sung by Diana Maddox, her clear, bell-like voice and almost palpable sadness making her one of the most memorable of the characters. A humorous children's singing game, sung by local school children, gives added realism, and little Gwenny's song to three very young boys is delightfully cheeky. Both enchanting and historically important, this memorable recording is worth seeking through Used sites or through amazon.co.uk--the best recording ever made of this wonderful "play for voices." Mary Whipple
Five Stars For Captain Cat, 21 Jul 2004
Under Milk Wood seems to be very out of fashion at the moment, maybe suffering from a hangover of being so popular in the 1970s. I don't think any schools or universities put it on their reading lists these days.
It is colloquial, but at the same time universally appealing. The lyricism of the language is so nice to read. And there's a bit of everything here, sadness, love, humour, marriage, poisoning, dreams. In its themes it is rather like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, with the difference that Under Milk Wood is always a pleasure to read and never frustrates.
This play maybe sad in tone, but is never maudlin or cynical.
It concentrates on small town life, and small town squalor but is never political. Overall it's a very affectionate book.
A great performance of a truly great work, 24 Oct 2003
Under Milk Wood is one of the finest examples of writing you will ever read, or in this case hear. Words of such depth, lilt and lyrical rhythm that they take the breath away. It is genuinely difficult to find terms that do this masterpiece of the English language justice - so I will not try, just listen and be entranced by the magic of Dylan Thomas's unique genius.
To find a recording of this work that does it justice is rare indeed - and the BBC production on these CDs is as close to perfection as I have ever heard. This is the "Under Milk Wood" by which all others are judged and found wanting. Buy it. Listen to it. Please.
Genius, 14 Dec 2007
I am a fan of talking books, and I would describe many of the ones that I have heard as good, entertaining, thought provoking even. But this collection of stories stands so far above everything else that I have listened to that I can't see them ever being eclipsed. They are that very rare thing in literature - something that is brilliant, complex, moving - but absolutely not worthy, or 'difficult'. How many of us have struggled through a Booker prize winner because we 'ought to', when really it was too much like hard work? These stories are just so entertaining. You very quickly forget that they are monologues because the scenes and other characters are so real that you can see and hear them as if you were watching a full-cast production. You will be able to come back to them again and again because they are so rich with detail, and so beautifully written, and spoken, that they will always be fresh. If you are considering whether or not to buy these, then consider no longer. This is a cast iron guaruntee that tou will love them - and I don't say that very often, if at all.
Try this, and be surprised, 13 Nov 2006
Some twenty years ago, mr. van Broekhoven, who taught us english, told us one day to be sure and watch a television programme called "Talking Heads" which would be shown on the BBC that same evening.
I loved it, right from the start. I was spellbound by the quality of the acting and by the words, especially by Alan Bennett's ability to put the right words in a character's mouth. He fashioned these truly moving stories out of little else but the dreary everyday life of ordinary people.
"Talking Heads" started me off on Alan Bennett and I've read a lot of his other work since, which I've also enjoyed very much.
Bennett writes with elegance, understatement and with uncanny empathy. He succeeds in really making these people come to life. One can't help but be moved by what these people tell us and you end up sympathising with them, pitying them, hoping they'll be alright, hoping it'll all work out for them. You end up sympathising with nasty small-minded people like Miss Ruddick, who is a poisoned pen-letter writer, with sad people like Graham, a man in his forties who lives with his mum, with a gullible, naïve half-wit like Lesley: a bit-part actress or "extra" who unwittingly, but unrelentingly cheerful and chirpy, ends up doing a cheap German nookie film, you even end up sympathising, awkward though it is, with a pedophile.
Yet there are no tricks, no ploys being used to achieve this, to draw upon emotions. It's just ordinary people telling their stories, revealing much about themselves, even those thing they would not want to reveal to a stranger. Reading this reminded me of a familiar experience: one feels as if being on a train, or in a waiting room. There is only one other person there and this person starts talking to you. You nod and smile politely, listen with half an ear, try and hide behind a paper or a book, but they just keep on talking, not even expecting a reply, just being glad of the chance to talk.
The form and the words are brilliantly chosen. There is so much in the little, throwaway remarks, in the seemingly unimportant. Much sadness, and loss and so much loneliness, sand painful self-awareness (or the absence thereof), much comedy, too, although these 13 people do not mean to tell a funny story. What they do, in fact, is to tell us the story of their lives (even if they do not really mean to) in little more than 30 minutes. Unwittingly they open cupboards and one or more skeletons fall out, as happens in all our lives.
Also, each of these stories has one or more wicked twists, which work marvellously: your perception of the story and of the person telling it is suddenly being tilted as the story sort of hits a bump. And after it's been given this jolt, nothing is quite the same.
I'll bugger off now but not after making 3 appeals:
1. Do not be put off by the fact that these are monologues, do not be put off by the fact that it's all about very ordinary people and do not be put off by the fact that all kinds of people about whose judgment is suspect (like teachers, critics, or indeed amazon-book reviewers) keep on telling you this is Literature, and great stuff. Just give this book a try. You will be amazed by the quality, the sensitivity and the common sense of the writing. You will probably end up as I did: recommending it to others.
2. Mr. Bennett: I know it's a bore being asked this, but could you find it in your heart to write some more of these wonderful monologues, to celebrate 20 years of "talking heads"?
3. BBC: bring them back!! Show them again, all thirteen of them, and do so every year, please.
Second chances are a good thing..., 19 Sep 2006
I too had to study the Bennett monologues at `A' level, and found it hard work - in fact, I came out of the whole ordeal with a great disliking for Bennetts work. However, I recently found myself with some time to spare and so I decided I'd perhaps give the monologues a second chance. I'm glad I did. Second time around I found the tales of each of the characters to be highly enjoyable. The characters were extremely well drawn and likable - be it the naive actress Lesley in `Her Big Chance' comparing the differences of a German director of an adult film to Polanski, or the rather sad character of Graham, dependent on his mother and horrified when she starts to have a life without him. Personally, I liked the story told by Miss Ruddock, that of someone obviously in need of attention and trying so hard to get it.
Bennett has captured perfectly the nature and personality of the simple characters in each of his stories and manages to recount each tale in both a humorous and touching way. The stories leave you caring for each of the main figures, each broken in some way and most of them blind to the fact.
Once again, I can only say how glad I am to have revisited this work and offer my apologies to the author for missing the point in the first place!
review of talking heads, 25 Jun 2005
Having to study Alan Bennet's talking heads for A-level, I can honestly say that it was an arduous task. It was near on impossible to write one thousand words on this travesty, as there is just no substance to his work. Bennet presents us with six characters. The format is the same with each, (except possibly Celia and Violet), there's some bizzare macabre secret that comes to be revealed, Wilfred is a peadophile, Marjory's Husband is a murderer etc. Wow, big deal. Bennet plays with appearance and deception. *STOP THE PRESSES!* I have grown up exposed to ardent praise of Bennet from my parents, who were born some time after the war. When I lived at home, Bennet truly was a sanctimonious icon of british drama, and regarded as a genius of his day. Maybe I'm young and just 'unaware', but I really can't see what all the fuss is about, and I really can't see Bennet's 'genius'. He achieves nothing new here, and Im just glad my A-levels are over. Avoid this at all costs.
Observational Genius!, 15 Nov 2002
Breathtaking is a word so often used to describe an offering from any artist, but this truly is. From simply observing the different and sometimes darkest side of human nature you find yourself completely engrosed and almost personally attatched to each charachter. His ability to exploit humor, and then drift into sadness and frustration without even seeming to step aside is superb. Within afew lines, even as early as the preliminary "setting", the personal effect his writing has takes you instantly into the situation and leaves you unable to exit until the sometimes bitter,sometimes hilarous, but always intriguing end. Each charachter seems genuinely real, the ordinary lives turning out as anything but. Of all this writers brilliant work this is unboubtedly the best (although "The Lady In The Van" is also worth a look, as is "Telling tales"...)to name but afew.
Amust for any fan of literature.
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Customer Reviews
Pure Delight, 22 Nov 2007
This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.
This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.
I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.
A masterpiece. Hunting on pig-back, he shoots down the wild giblets, 24 Aug 2006
Excellent - improves every time I listen to it.
Don't be put off by the arty context its easy to listen to... Original 1954 recording with Richard Burton, all-Welsh cast., 04 Jan 2006
Written as a "play for voices" for the BBC, this historic audiotape features the all-Welsh cast of the original BBC production from 1954. Richard Burton is the First Voice, which connects all the characters, played by twenty-eight men, women, and children. With perfect diction and the sense of character which only a great actor can convey, Burton rolls his R's, modulates his voice in pitch and intensity, and makes Thomas's poetry come fully alive--full of alliteration and various kinds of rhyme, with nouns and adjectives used as verbs to convey action and sense impressions simultaneously, and always a wry humor and honesty of feeling. Depicting one full day in the life of a small town in Wales, Thomas shows its motley residents as they awaken, perform their daily tasks, socialize, gossip, and daydream about the past that might have been and the future that may yet hold hope. When night falls and the residents retire, their losses and disappointments, along with their escapes into dreams, are given voice and poignancy. Polly Garter, with her numerous children by numerous fathers, dreams of Willie, a very small man who was the love of her life. Captain Cat, the blind bell-ringer, thinks of all the sailors he knew who died at sea. Mr. Pugh dreams of poisoning his wife, and young Gwenny, who has extorted pennies from the little boys who do NOT want to kiss her, plans for the next day and more pennies. The sound effects provide context for the drama without overpowering the narrative--a cock's crow, the clip-clop of horses, the bark of dogs, footsteps, the sea, bell buoys--and simple songs add to the realism and the sense of character and place. A mournful tune performed by Polly Garter in a minor key, as she remembers Willie and compares him to her other lovers, is beautifully sung by Diana Maddox, her clear, bell-like voice and almost palpable sadness making her one of the most memorable of the characters. A humorous children's singing game, sung by local school children, gives added realism, and little Gwenny's song to three very young boys is delightfully cheeky. Both enchanting and historically important, this memorable recording is worth seeking through Used sites or through amazon.co.uk--the best recording ever made of this wonderful "play for voices." Mary Whipple
Five Stars For Captain Cat, 21 Jul 2004
Under Milk Wood seems to be very out of fashion at the moment, maybe suffering from a hangover of being so popular in the 1970s. I don't think any schools or universities put it on their reading lists these days.
It is colloquial, but at the same time universally appealing. The lyricism of the language is so nice to read. And there's a bit of everything here, sadness, love, humour, marriage, poisoning, dreams. In its themes it is rather like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, with the difference that Under Milk Wood is always a pleasure to read and never frustrates.
This play maybe sad in tone, but is never maudlin or cynical.
It concentrates on small town life, and small town squalor but is never political. Overall it's a very affectionate book.
A great performance of a truly great work, 24 Oct 2003
Under Milk Wood is one of the finest examples of writing you will ever read, or in this case hear. Words of such depth, lilt and lyrical rhythm that they take the breath away. It is genuinely difficult to find terms that do this masterpiece of the English language justice - so I will not try, just listen and be entranced by the magic of Dylan Thomas's unique genius.
To find a recording of this work that does it justice is rare indeed - and the BBC production on these CDs is as close to perfection as I have ever heard. This is the "Under Milk Wood" by which all others are judged and found wanting. Buy it. Listen to it. Please.
Genius, 14 Dec 2007
I am a fan of talking books, and I would describe many of the ones that I have heard as good, entertaining, thought provoking even. But this collection of stories stands so far above everything else that I have listened to that I can't see them ever being eclipsed. They are that very rare thing in literature - something that is brilliant, complex, moving - but absolutely not worthy, or 'difficult'. How many of us have struggled through a Booker prize winner because we 'ought to', when really it was too much like hard work? These stories are just so entertaining. You very quickly forget that they are monologues because the scenes and other characters are so real that you can see and hear them as if you were watching a full-cast production. You will be able to come back to them again and again because they are so rich with detail, and so beautifully written, and spoken, that they will always be fresh. If you are considering whether or not to buy these, then consider no longer. This is a cast iron guaruntee that tou will love them - and I don't say that very often, if at all.
Try this, and be surprised, 13 Nov 2006
Some twenty years ago, mr. van Broekhoven, who taught us english, told us one day to be sure and watch a television programme called "Talking Heads" which would be shown on the BBC that same evening.
I loved it, right from the start. I was spellbound by the quality of the acting and by the words, especially by Alan Bennett's ability to put the right words in a character's mouth. He fashioned these truly moving stories out of little else but the dreary everyday life of ordinary people.
"Talking Heads" started me off on Alan Bennett and I've read a lot of his other work since, which I've also enjoyed very much.
Bennett writes with elegance, understatement and with uncanny empathy. He succeeds in really making these people come to life. One can't help but be moved by what these people tell us and you end up sympathising with them, pitying them, hoping they'll be alright, hoping it'll all work out for them. You end up sympathising with nasty small-minded people like Miss Ruddick, who is a poisoned pen-letter writer, with sad people like Graham, a man in his forties who lives with his mum, with a gullible, naïve half-wit like Lesley: a bit-part actress or "extra" who unwittingly, but unrelentingly cheerful and chirpy, ends up doing a cheap German nookie film, you even end up sympathising, awkward though it is, with a pedophile.
Yet there are no tricks, no ploys being used to achieve this, to draw upon emotions. It's just ordinary people telling their stories, revealing much about themselves, even those thing they would not want to reveal to a stranger. Reading this reminded me of a familiar experience: one feels as if being on a train, or in a waiting room. There is only one other person there and this person starts talking to you. You nod and smile politely, listen with half an ear, try and hide behind a paper or a book, but they just keep on talking, not even expecting a reply, just being glad of the chance to talk.
The form and the words are brilliantly chosen. There is so much in the little, throwaway remarks, in the seemingly unimportant. Much sadness, and loss and so much loneliness, sand painful self-awareness (or the absence thereof), much comedy, too, although these 13 people do not mean to tell a funny story. What they do, in fact, is to tell us the story of their lives (even if they do not really mean to) in little more than 30 minutes. Unwittingly they open cupboards and one or more skeletons fall out, as happens in all our lives.
Also, each of these stories has one or more wicked twists, which work marvellously: your perception of the story and of the person telling it is suddenly being tilted as the story sort of hits a bump. And after it's been given this jolt, nothing is quite the same.
I'll bugger off now but not after making 3 appeals:
1. Do not be put off by the fact that these are monologues, do not be put off by the fact that it's all about very ordinary people and do not be put off by the fact that all kinds of people about whose judgment is suspect (like teachers, critics, or indeed amazon-book reviewers) keep on telling you this is Literature, and great stuff. Just give this book a try. You will be amazed by the quality, the sensitivity and the common sense of the writing. You will probably end up as I did: recommending it to others.
2. Mr. Bennett: I know it's a bore being asked this, but could you find it in your heart to write some more of these wonderful monologues, to celebrate 20 years of "talking heads"?
3. BBC: bring them back!! Show them again, all thirteen of them, and do so every year, please.
Second chances are a good thing..., 19 Sep 2006
I too had to study the Bennett monologues at `A' level, and found it hard work - in fact, I came out of the whole ordeal with a great disliking for Bennetts work. However, I recently found myself with some time to spare and so I decided I'd perhaps give the monologues a second chance. I'm glad I did. Second time around I found the tales of each of the characters to be highly enjoyable. The characters were extremely well drawn and likable - be it the naive actress Lesley in `Her Big Chance' comparing the differences of a German director of an adult film to Polanski, or the rather sad character of Graham, dependent on his mother and horrified when she starts to have a life without him. Personally, I liked the story told by Miss Ruddock, that of someone obviously in need of attention and trying so hard to get it.
Bennett has captured perfectly the nature and personality of the simple characters in each of his stories and manages to recount each tale in both a humorous and touching way. The stories leave you caring for each of the main figures, each broken in some way and most of them blind to the fact.
Once again, I can only say how glad I am to have revisited this work and offer my apologies to the author for missing the point in the first place!
review of talking heads, 25 Jun 2005
Having to study Alan Bennet's talking heads for A-level, I can honestly say that it was an arduous task. It was near on impossible to write one thousand words on this travesty, as there is just no substance to his work. Bennet presents us with six characters. The format is the same with each, (except possibly Celia and Violet), there's some bizzare macabre secret that comes to be revealed, Wilfred is a peadophile, Marjory's Husband is a murderer etc. Wow, big deal. Bennet plays with appearance and deception. *STOP THE PRESSES!* I have grown up exposed to ardent praise of Bennet from my parents, who were born some time after the war. When I lived at home, Bennet truly was a sanctimonious icon of british drama, and regarded as a genius of his day. Maybe I'm young and just 'unaware', but I really can't see what all the fuss is about, and I really can't see Bennet's 'genius'. He achieves nothing new here, and Im just glad my A-levels are over. Avoid this at all costs.
Observational Genius!, 15 Nov 2002
Breathtaking is a word so often used to describe an offering from any artist, but this truly is. From simply observing the different and sometimes darkest side of human nature you find yourself completely engrosed and almost personally attatched to each charachter. His ability to exploit humor, and then drift into sadness and frustration without even seeming to step aside is superb. Within afew lines, even as early as the preliminary "setting", the personal effect his writing has takes you instantly into the situation and leaves you unable to exit until the sometimes bitter,sometimes hilarous, but always intriguing end. Each charachter seems genuinely real, the ordinary lives turning out as anything but. Of all this writers brilliant work this is unboubtedly the best (although "The Lady In The Van" is also worth a look, as is "Telling tales"...)to name but afew.
Amust for any fan of literature.
Music lessons made easy, 21 Sep 2003
This book is very easy to use with practical suggestions for planning and implementing music in the classroom. The range of songs provided on the CD are entertaining and lively, which have been very popluar with the children.
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Alan Bennett, Triple Bill
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Alan Bennett;
2007-04-02;
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Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
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*Amazon: £4.62
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Customer Reviews
Pure Delight, 22 Nov 2007
This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.
This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.
I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.
A masterpiece. Hunting on pig-back, he shoots down the wild giblets, 24 Aug 2006
Excellent - improves every time I listen to it.
Don't be put off by the arty context its easy to listen to... Original 1954 recording with Richard Burton, all-Welsh cast., 04 Jan 2006
Written as a "play for voices" for the BBC, this historic audiotape features the all-Welsh cast of the original BBC production from 1954. Richard Burton is the First Voice, which connects all the characters, played by twenty-eight men, women, and children. With perfect diction and the sense of character which only a great actor can convey, Burton rolls his R's, modulates his voice in pitch and intensity, and makes Thomas's poetry come fully alive--full of alliteration and various kinds of rhyme, with nouns and adjectives used as verbs to convey action and sense impressions simultaneously, and always a wry humor and honesty of feeling. Depicting one full day in the life of a small town in Wales, Thomas shows its motley residents as they awaken, perform their daily tasks, socialize, gossip, and daydream about the past that might have been and the future that may yet hold hope. When night falls and the residents retire, their losses and disappointments, along with their escapes into dreams, are given voice and poignancy. Polly Garter, with her numerous children by numerous fathers, dreams of Willie, a very small man who was the love of her life. Captain Cat, the blind bell-ringer, thinks of all the sailors he knew who died at sea. Mr. Pugh dreams of poisoning his wife, and young Gwenny, who has extorted pennies from the little boys who do NOT want to kiss her, plans for the next day and more pennies. The sound effects provide context for the drama without overpowering the narrative--a cock's crow, the clip-clop of horses, the bark of dogs, footsteps, the sea, bell buoys--and simple songs add to the realism and the sense of character and place. A mournful tune performed by Polly Garter in a minor key, as she remembers Willie and compares him to her other lovers, is beautifully sung by Diana Maddox, her clear, bell-like voice and almost palpable sadness making her one of the most memorable of the characters. A humorous children's singing game, sung by local school children, gives added realism, and little Gwenny's song to three very young boys is delightfully cheeky. Both enchanting and historically important, this memorable recording is worth seeking through Used sites or through amazon.co.uk--the best recording ever made of this wonderful "play for voices." Mary Whipple
Five Stars For Captain Cat, 21 Jul 2004
Under Milk Wood seems to be very out of fashion at the moment, maybe suffering from a hangover of being so popular in the 1970s. I don't think any schools or universities put it on their reading lists these days.
It is colloquial, but at the same time universally appealing. The lyricism of the language is so nice to read. And there's a bit of everything here, sadness, love, humour, marriage, poisoning, dreams. In its themes it is rather like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, with the difference that Under Milk Wood is always a pleasure to read and never frustrates.
This play maybe sad in tone, but is never maudlin or cynical.
It concentrates on small town life, and small town squalor but is never political. Overall it's a very affectionate book.
A great performance of a truly great work, 24 Oct 2003
Under Milk Wood is one of the finest examples of writing you will ever read, or in this case hear. Words of such depth, lilt and lyrical rhythm that they take the breath away. It is genuinely difficult to find terms that do this masterpiece of the English language justice - so I will not try, just listen and be entranced by the magic of Dylan Thomas's unique genius.
To find a recording of this work that does it justice is rare indeed - and the BBC production on these CDs is as close to perfection as I have ever heard. This is the "Under Milk Wood" by which all others are judged and found wanting. Buy it. Listen to it. Please.
Genius, 14 Dec 2007
I am a fan of talking books, and I would describe many of the ones that I have heard as good, entertaining, thought provoking even. But this collection of stories stands so far above everything else that I have listened to that I can't see them ever being eclipsed. They are that very rare thing in literature - something that is brilliant, complex, moving - but absolutely not worthy, or 'difficult'. How many of us have struggled through a Booker prize winner because we 'ought to', when really it was too much like hard work? These stories are just so entertaining. You very quickly forget that they are monologues because the scenes and other characters are so real that you can see and hear them as if you were watching a full-cast production. You will be able to come back to them again and again because they are so rich with detail, and so beautifully written, and spoken, that they will always be fresh. If you are considering whether or not to buy these, then consider no longer. This is a cast iron guaruntee that tou will love them - and I don't say that very often, if at all.
Try this, and be surprised, 13 Nov 2006
Some twenty years ago, mr. van Broekhoven, who taught us english, told us one day to be sure and watch a television programme called "Talking Heads" which would be shown on the BBC that same evening.
I loved it, right from the start. I was spellbound by the quality of the acting and by the words, especially by Alan Bennett's ability to put the right words in a character's mouth. He fashioned these truly moving stories out of little else but the dreary everyday life of ordinary people.
"Talking Heads" started me off on Alan Bennett and I've read a lot of his other work since, which I've also enjoyed very much.
Bennett writes with elegance, understatement and with uncanny empathy. He succeeds in really making these people come to life. One can't help but be moved by what these people tell us and you end up sympathising with them, pitying them, hoping they'll be alright, hoping it'll all work out for them. You end up sympathising with nasty small-minded people like Miss Ruddick, who is a poisoned pen-letter writer, with sad people like Graham, a man in his forties who lives with his mum, with a gullible, naïve half-wit like Lesley: a bit-part actress or "extra" who unwittingly, but unrelentingly cheerful and chirpy, ends up doing a cheap German nookie film, you even end up sympathising, awkward though it is, with a pedophile.
Yet there are no tricks, no ploys being used to achieve this, to draw upon emotions. It's just ordinary people telling their stories, revealing much about themselves, even those thing they would not want to reveal to a stranger. Reading this reminded me of a familiar experience: one feels as if being on a train, or in a waiting room. There is only one other person there and this person starts talking to you. You nod and smile politely, listen with half an ear, try and hide behind a paper or a book, but they just keep on talking, not even expecting a reply, just being glad of the chance to talk.
The form and the words are brilliantly chosen. There is so much in the little, throwaway remarks, in the seemingly unimportant. Much sadness, and loss and so much loneliness, sand painful self-awareness (or the absence thereof), much comedy, too, although these 13 people do not mean to tell a funny story. What they do, in fact, is to tell us the story of their lives (even if they do not really mean to) in little more than 30 minutes. Unwittingly they open cupboards and one or more skeletons fall out, as happens in all our lives.
Also, each of these stories has one or more wicked twists, which work marvellously: your perception of the story and of the person telling it is suddenly being tilted as the story sort of hits a bump. And after it's been given this jolt, nothing is quite the same.
I'll bugger off now but not after making 3 appeals:
1. Do not be put off by the fact that these are monologues, do not be put off by the fact that it's all about very ordinary people and do not be put off by the fact that all kinds of people about whose judgment is suspect (like teachers, critics, or indeed amazon-book reviewers) keep on telling you this is Literature, and great stuff. Just give this book a try. You will be amazed by the quality, the sensitivity and the common sense of the writing. You will probably end up as I did: recommending it to others.
2. Mr. Bennett: I know it's a bore being asked this, but could you find it in your heart to write some more of these wonderful monologues, to celebrate 20 years of "talking heads"?
3. BBC: bring them back!! Show them again, all thirteen of them, and do so every year, please.
Second chances are a good thing..., 19 Sep 2006
I too had to study the Bennett monologues at `A' level, and found it hard work - in fact, I came out of the whole ordeal with a great disliking for Bennetts work. However, I recently found myself with some time to spare and so I decided I'd perhaps give the monologues a second chance. I'm glad I did. Second time around I found the tales of each of the characters to be highly enjoyable. The characters were extremely well drawn and likable - be it the naive actress Lesley in `Her Big Chance' comparing the differences of a German director of an adult film to Polanski, or the rather sad character of Graham, dependent on his mother and horrified when she starts to have a life without him. Personally, I liked the story told by Miss Ruddock, that of someone obviously in need of attention and trying so hard to get it.
Bennett has captured perfectly the nature and personality of the simple characters in each of his stories and manages to recount each tale in both a humorous and touching way. The stories leave you caring for each of the main figures, each broken in some way and most of them blind to the fact.
Once again, I can only say how glad I am to have revisited this work and offer my apologies to the author for missing the point in the first place!
review of talking heads, 25 Jun 2005
Having to study Alan Bennet's talking heads for A-level, I can honestly say that it was an arduous task. It was near on impossible to write one thousand words on this travesty, as there is just no substance to his work. Bennet presents us with six characters. The format is the same with each, (except possibly Celia and Violet), there's some bizzare macabre secret that comes to be revealed, Wilfred is a peadophile, Marjory's Husband is a murderer etc. Wow, big deal. Bennet plays with appearance and deception. *STOP THE PRESSES!* I have grown up exposed to ardent praise of Bennet from my parents, who were born some time after the war. When I lived at home, Bennet truly was a sanctimonious icon of british drama, and regarded as a genius of his day. Maybe I'm young and just 'unaware', but I really can't see what all the fuss is about, and I really can't see Bennet's 'genius'. He achieves nothing new here, and Im just glad my A-levels are over. Avoid this at all costs.
Observational Genius!, 15 Nov 2002
Breathtaking is a word so often used to describe an offering from any artist, but this truly is. From simply observing the different and sometimes darkest side of human nature you find yourself completely engrosed and almost personally attatched to each charachter. His ability to exploit humor, and then drift into sadness and frustration without even seeming to step aside is superb. Within afew lines, even as early as the preliminary "setting", the personal effect his writing has takes you instantly into the situation and leaves you unable to exit until the sometimes bitter,sometimes hilarous, but always intriguing end. Each charachter seems genuinely real, the ordinary lives turning out as anything but. Of all this writers brilliant work this is unboubtedly the best (although "The Lady In The Van" is also worth a look, as is "Telling tales"...)to name but afew.
Amust for any fan of literature.
Music lessons made easy, 21 Sep 2003
This book is very easy to use with practical suggestions for planning and implementing music in the classroom. The range of songs provided on the CD are entertaining and lively, which have been very popluar with the children.
Classic Bennett....., 09 Apr 2007
3 of Alan Bennett`s short plays including 2 of his favourite leading ladies , Dame Thora and Patricia Routledge. I had read the first two before , the third , a dialogue between himself and Dame Judi Dench was a stranger to me . This collection is classic Bennett at it`s very best -- a joy to listen to . Hopefully more of his early works will find their way onto disc soon.
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King Lear (Naxos Audio)
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William Shakespeare;
2002-01-07;
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Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
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*Amazon: £7.95
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Customer Reviews
Pure Delight, 22 Nov 2007
This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.
This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.
I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.
A masterpiece. Hunting on pig-back, he shoots down the wild giblets, 24 Aug 2006
Excellent - improves every time I listen to it.
Don't be put off by the arty context its easy to listen to... Original 1954 recording with Richard Burton, all-Welsh cast., 04 Jan 2006
Written as a "play for voices" for the BBC, this historic audiotape features the all-Welsh cast of the original BBC production from 1954. Richard Burton is the First Voice, which connects all the characters, played by twenty-eight men, women, and children. With perfect diction and the sense of character which only a great actor can convey, Burton rolls his R's, modulates his voice in pitch and intensity, and makes Thomas's poetry come fully alive--full of alliteration and various kinds of rhyme, with nouns and adjectives used as verbs to convey action and sense impressions simultaneously, and always a wry humor and honesty of feeling. Depicting one full day in the life of a small town in Wales, Thomas shows its motley residents as they awaken, perform their daily tasks, socialize, gossip, and daydream about the past that might have been and the future that may yet hold hope. When night falls and the residents retire, their losses and disappointments, along with their escapes into dreams, are given voice and poignancy. Polly Garter, with her numerous children by numerous fathers, dreams of Willie, a very small man who was the love of her life. Captain Cat, the blind bell-ringer, thinks of all the sailors he knew who died at sea. Mr. Pugh dreams of poisoning his wife, and young Gwenny, who has extorted pennies from the little boys who do NOT want to kiss her, plans for the next day and more pennies. The sound effects provide context for the drama without overpowering the narrative--a cock's crow, the clip-clop of horses, the bark of dogs, footsteps, the sea, bell buoys--and simple songs add to the realism and the sense of character and place. A mournful tune performed by Polly Garter in a minor key, as she remembers Willie and compares him to her other lovers, is beautifully sung by Diana Maddox, her clear, bell-like voice and almost palpable sadness making her one of the most memorable of the characters. A humorous children's singing game, sung by local school children, gives added realism, and little Gwenny's song to three very young boys is delightfully cheeky. Both enchanting and historically important, this memorable recording is worth seeking through Used sites or through amazon.co.uk--the best recording ever made of this wonderful "play for voices." Mary Whipple
Five Stars For Captain Cat, 21 Jul 2004
Under Milk Wood seems to be very out of fashion at the moment, maybe suffering from a hangover of being so popular in the 1970s. I don't think any schools or universities put it on their reading lists these days.
It is colloquial, but at the same time universally appealing. The lyricism of the language is so nice to read. And there's a bit of everything here, sadness, love, humour, marriage, poisoning, dreams. In its themes it is rather like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, with the difference that Under Milk Wood is always a pleasure to read and never frustrates.
This play maybe sad in tone, but is never maudlin or cynical.
It concentrates on small town life, and small town squalor but is never political. Overall it's a very affectionate book.
A great performance of a truly great work, 24 Oct 2003
Under Milk Wood is one of the finest examples of writing you will ever read, or in this case hear. Words of such depth, lilt and lyrical rhythm that they take the breath away. It is genuinely difficult to find terms that do this masterpiece of the English language justice - so I will not try, just listen and be entranced by the magic of Dylan Thomas's unique genius.
To find a recording of this work that does it justice is rare indeed - and the BBC production on these CDs is as close to perfection as I have ever heard. This is the "Under Milk Wood" by which all others are judged and found wanting. Buy it. Listen to it. Please.
Genius, 14 Dec 2007
I am a fan of talking books, and I would describe many of the ones that I have heard as good, entertaining, thought provoking even. But this collection of stories stands so far above everything else that I have listened to that I can't see them ever being eclipsed. They are that very rare thing in literature - something that is brilliant, complex, moving - but absolutely not worthy, or 'difficult'. How many of us have struggled through a Booker prize winner because we 'ought to', when really it was too much like hard work? These stories are just so entertaining. You very quickly forget that they are monologues because the scenes and other characters are so real that you can see and hear them as if you were watching a full-cast production. You will be able to come back to them again and again because they are so rich with detail, and so beautifully written, and spoken, that they will always be fresh. If you are considering whether or not to buy these, then consider no longer. This is a cast iron guaruntee that tou will love them - and I don't say that very often, if at all.
Try this, and be surprised, 13 Nov 2006
Some twenty years ago, mr. van Broekhoven, who taught us english, told us one day to be sure and watch a television programme called "Talking Heads" which would be shown on the BBC that same evening.
I loved it, right from the start. I was spellbound by the quality of the acting and by the words, especially by Alan Bennett's ability to put the right words in a character's mouth. He fashioned these truly moving stories out of little else but the dreary everyday life of ordinary people.
"Talking Heads" started me off on Alan Bennett and I've read a lot of his other work since, which I've also enjoyed very much.
Bennett writes with elegance, understatement and with uncanny empathy. He succeeds in really making these people come to life. One can't help but be moved by what these people tell us and you end up sympathising with them, pitying them, hoping they'll be alright, hoping it'll all work out for them. You end up sympathising with nasty small-minded people like Miss Ruddick, who is a poisoned pen-letter writer, with sad people like Graham, a man in his forties who lives with his mum, with a gullible, naïve half-wit like Lesley: a bit-part actress or "extra" who unwittingly, but unrelentingly cheerful and chirpy, ends up doing a cheap German nookie film, you even end up sympathising, awkward though it is, with a pedophile.
Yet there are no tricks, no ploys being used to achieve this, to draw upon emotions. It's just ordinary people telling their stories, revealing much about themselves, even those thing they would not want to reveal to a stranger. Reading this reminded me of a familiar experience: one feels as if being on a train, or in a waiting room. There is only one other person there and this person starts talking to you. You nod and smile politely, listen with half an ear, try and hide behind a paper or a book, but they just keep on talking, not even expecting a reply, just being glad of the chance to talk.
The form and the words are brilliantly chosen. There is so much in the little, throwaway remarks, in the seemingly unimportant. Much sadness, and loss and so much loneliness, sand painful self-awareness (or the absence thereof), much comedy, too, although these 13 people do not mean to tell a funny story. What they do, in fact, is to tell us the story of their lives (even if they do not really mean to) in little more than 30 minutes. Unwittingly they open cupboards and one or more skeletons fall out, as happens in all our lives.
Also, each of these stories has one or more wicked twists, which work marvellously: your perception of the story and of the person telling it is suddenly being tilted as the story sort of hits a bump. And after it's been given this jolt, nothing is quite the same.
I'll bugger off now but not after making 3 appeals:
1. Do not be put off by the fact that these are monologues, do not be put off by the fact that it's all about very ordinary people and do not be put off by the fact that all kinds of people about whose judgment is suspect (like teachers, critics, or indeed amazon-book reviewers) keep on telling you this is Literature, and great stuff. Just give this book a try. You will be amazed by the quality, the sensitivity and the common sense of the writing. You will probably end up as I did: recommending it to others.
2. Mr. Bennett: I know it's a bore being asked this, but could you find it in your heart to write some more of these wonderful monologues, to celebrate 20 years of "talking heads"?
3. BBC: bring them back!! Show them again, all thirteen of them, and do so every year, please.
Second chances are a good thing..., 19 Sep 2006
I too had to study the Bennett monologues at `A' level, and found it hard work - in fact, I came out of the whole ordeal with a great disliking for Bennetts work. However, I recently found myself with some time to spare and so I decided I'd perhaps give the monologues a second chance. I'm glad I did. Second time around I found the tales of each of the characters to be highly enjoyable. The characters were extremely well drawn and likable - be it the naive actress Lesley in `Her Big Chance' comparing the differences of a German director of an adult film to Polanski, or the rather sad character of Graham, dependent on his mother and horrified when she starts to have a life without him. Personally, I liked the story told by Miss Ruddock, that of someone obviously in need of attention and trying so hard to get it.
Bennett has captured perfectly the nature and personality of the simple characters in each of his stories and manages to recount each tale in both a humorous and touching way. The stories leave you caring for each of the main figures, each broken in some way and most of them blind to the fact.
Once again, I can only say how glad I am to have revisited this work and offer my apologies to the author for missing the point in the first place!
review of talking heads, 25 Jun 2005
Having to study Alan Bennet's talking heads for A-level, I can honestly say that it was an arduous task. It was near on impossible to write one thousand words on this travesty, as there is just no substance to his work. Bennet presents us with six characters. The format is the same with each, (except possibly Celia and Violet), there's some bizzare macabre secret that comes to be revealed, Wilfred is a peadophile, Marjory's Husband is a murderer etc. Wow, big deal. Bennet plays with appearance and deception. *STOP THE PRESSES!* I have grown up exposed to ardent praise of Bennet from my parents, who were born some time after the war. When I lived at home, Bennet truly was a sanctimonious icon of british drama, and regarded as a genius of his day. Maybe I'm young and just 'unaware', but I really can't see what all the fuss is about, and I really can't see Bennet's 'genius'. He achieves nothing new here, and Im just glad my A-levels are over. Avoid this at all costs.
Observational Genius!, 15 Nov 2002
Breathtaking is a word so often used to describe an offering from any artist, but this truly is. From simply observing the different and sometimes darkest side of human nature you find yourself completely engrosed and almost personally attatched to each charachter. His ability to exploit humor, and then drift into sadness and frustration without even seeming to step aside is superb. Within afew lines, even as early as the preliminary "setting", the personal effect his writing has takes you instantly into the situation and leaves you unable to exit until the sometimes bitter,sometimes hilarous, but always intriguing end. Each charachter seems genuinely real, the ordinary lives turning out as anything but. Of all this writers brilliant work this is unboubtedly the best (although "The Lady In The Van" is also worth a look, as is "Telling tales"...)to name but afew.
Amust for any fan of literature.
Music lessons made easy, 21 Sep 2003
This book is very easy to use with practical suggestions for planning and implementing music in the classroom. The range of songs provided on the CD are entertaining and lively, which have been very popluar with the children.
Classic Bennett....., 09 Apr 2007
3 of Alan Bennett`s short plays including 2 of his favourite leading ladies , Dame Thora and Patricia Routledge. I had read the first two before , the third , a dialogue between himself and Dame Judi Dench was a stranger to me . This collection is classic Bennett at it`s very best -- a joy to listen to . Hopefully more of his early works will find their way onto disc soon.
peerless, 02 Nov 2002
If you are looking for a recording of one of the greatest plays ever written or love this play anyway, buy, buy this recording. This production assembles a truly magnificent cast headed by Paul Schofield whose Lear, recorded at around 80, is breath-taking. I don't know of a finer recording of Shakespeare. Lauded by the press, you don't even have to know the text or be 'into' theatre to be drawn into this drama. Harriet Watrer, Alec McCowan, Kenneth Branagh - what a cast! Branach perhaps is a bit irritating as the fool, but that is my only cavil. I love this recording - one to return to again and again. I'm not ashamed to say I wept at the end.
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Telling Tales (Radio Collection)
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Alan Bennett;
2000-11-06;
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Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
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*Amazon: £8.92
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Customer Reviews
Pure Delight, 22 Nov 2007
This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.
This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.
I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.
A masterpiece. Hunting on pig-back, he shoots down the wild giblets, 24 Aug 2006
Excellent - improves every time I listen to it.
Don't be put off by the arty context its easy to listen to... Original 1954 recording with Richard Burton, all-Welsh cast., 04 Jan 2006
Written as a "play for voices" for the BBC, this historic audiotape features the all-Welsh cast of the original BBC production from 1954. Richard Burton is the First Voice, which connects all the characters, played by twenty-eight men, women, and children. With perfect diction and the sense of character which only a great actor can convey, Burton rolls his R's, modulates his voice in pitch and intensity, and makes Thomas's poetry come fully alive--full of alliteration and various kinds of rhyme, with nouns and adjectives used as verbs to convey action and sense impressions simultaneously, and always a wry humor and honesty of feeling. Depicting one full day in the life of a small town in Wales, Thomas shows its motley residents as they awaken, perform their daily tasks, socialize, gossip, and daydream about the past that might have been and the future that may yet hold hope. When night falls and the residents retire, their losses and disappointments, along with their escapes into dreams, are given voice and poignancy. Polly Garter, with her numerous children by numerous fathers, dreams of Willie, a very small man who was the love of her life. Captain Cat, the blind bell-ringer, thinks of all the sailors he knew who died at sea. Mr. Pugh dreams of poisoning his wife, and young Gwenny, who has extorted pennies from the little boys who do NOT want to kiss her, plans for the next day and more pennies. The sound effects provide context for the drama without overpowering the narrative--a cock's crow, the clip-clop of horses, the bark of dogs, footsteps, the sea, bell buoys--and simple songs add to the realism and the sense of character and place. A mournful tune performed by Polly Garter in a minor key, as she remembers Willie and compares him to her other lovers, is beautifully sung by Diana Maddox, her clear, bell-like voice and almost palpable sadness making her one of the most memorable of the characters. A humorous children's singing game, sung by local school children, gives added realism, and little Gwenny's song to three very young boys is delightfully cheeky. Both enchanting and historically important, this memorable recording is worth seeking through Used sites or through amazon.co.uk--the best recording ever made of this wonderful "play for voices." Mary Whipple
Five Stars For Captain Cat, 21 Jul 2004
Under Milk Wood seems to be very out of fashion at the moment, maybe suffering from a hangover of being so popular in the 1970s. I don't think any schools or universities put it on their reading lists these days.
It is colloquial, but at the same time universally appealing. The lyricism of the language is so nice to read. And there's a bit of everything here, sadness, love, humour, marriage, poisoning, dreams. In its themes it is rather like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, with the difference that Under Milk Wood is always a pleasure to read and never frustrates.
This play maybe sad in tone, but is never maudlin or cynical.
It concentrates on small town life, and small town squalor but is never political. Overall it's a very affectionate book.
A great performance of a truly great work, 24 Oct 2003
Under Milk Wood is one of the finest examples of writing you will ever read, or in this case hear. Words of such depth, lilt and lyrical rhythm that they take the breath away. It is genuinely difficult to find terms that do this masterpiece of the English language justice - so I will not try, just listen and be entranced by the magic of Dylan Thomas's unique genius.
To find a recording of this work that does it justice is rare indeed - and the BBC production on these CDs is as close to perfection as I have ever heard. This is the "Under Milk Wood" by which all others are judged and found wanting. Buy it. Listen to it. Please.
Genius, 14 Dec 2007
I am a fan of talking books, and I would describe many of the ones that I have heard as good, entertaining, thought provoking even. But this collection of stories stands so far above everything else that I have listened to that I can't see them ever being eclipsed. They are that very rare thing in literature - something that is brilliant, complex, moving - but absolutely not worthy, or 'difficult'. How many of us have struggled through a Booker prize winner because we 'ought to', when really it was too much like hard work? These stories are just so entertaining. You very quickly forget that they are monologues because the scenes and other characters are so real that you can see and hear them as if you were watching a full-cast production. You will be able to come back to them again and again because they are so rich with detail, and so beautifully written, and spoken, that they will always be fresh. If you are considering whether or not to buy these, then consider no longer. This is a cast iron guaruntee that tou will love them - and I don't say that very often, if at all.
Try this, and be surprised, 13 Nov 2006
Some twenty years ago, mr. van Broekhoven, who taught us english, told us one day to be sure and watch a television programme called "Talking Heads" which would be shown on the BBC that same evening.
I loved it, right from the start. I was spellbound by the quality of the acting and by the words, especially by Alan Bennett's ability to put the right words in a character's mouth. He fashioned these truly moving stories out of little else but the dreary everyday life of ordinary people.
"Talking Heads" started me off on Alan Bennett and I've read a lot of his other work since, which I've also enjoyed very much.
Bennett writes with elegance, understatement and with uncanny empathy. He succeeds in really making these people come to life. One can't help but be moved by what these people tell us and you end up sympathising with them, pitying them, hoping they'll be alright, hoping it'll all work out for them. You end up sympathising with nasty small-minded people like Miss Ruddick, who is a poisoned pen-letter writer, with sad people like Graham, a man in his forties who lives with his mum, with a gullible, naïve half-wit like Lesley: a bit-part actress or "extra" who unwittingly, but unrelentingly cheerful and chirpy, ends up doing a cheap German nookie film, you even end up sympathising, awkward though it is, with a pedophile.
Yet there are no tricks, no ploys being used to achieve this, to draw upon emotions. It's just ordinary people telling their stories, revealing much about themselves, even those thing they would not want to reveal to a stranger. Reading this reminded me of a familiar experience: one feels as if being on a train, or in a waiting room. There is only one other person there and this person starts talking to you. You nod and smile politely, listen with half an ear, try and hide behind a paper or a book, but they just keep on talking, not even expecting a reply, just being glad of the chance to talk.
The form and the words are brilliantly chosen. There is so much in the little, throwaway remarks, in the seemingly unimportant. Much sadness, and loss and so much loneliness, sand painful self-awareness (or the absence thereof), much comedy, too, although these 13 people do not mean to tell a funny story. What they do, in fact, is to tell us the story of their lives (even if they do not really mean to) in little more than 30 minutes. Unwittingly they open cupboards and one or more skeletons fall out, as happens in all our lives.
Also, each of these stories has one or more wicked twists, which work marvellously: your perception of the story and of the person telling it is suddenly being tilted as the story sort of hits a bump. And after it's been given this jolt, nothing is quite the same.
I'll bugger off now but not after making 3 appeals:
1. Do not be put off by the fact that these are monologues, do not be put off by the fact that it's all about very ordinary people and do not be put off by the fact that all kinds of people about whose judgment is suspect (like teachers, critics, or indeed amazon-book reviewers) keep on telling you this is Literature, and great stuff. Just give this book a try. You will be amazed by the quality, the sensitivity and the common sense of the writing. You will probably end up as I did: recommending it to others.
2. Mr. Bennett: I know it's a bore being asked this, but could you find it in your heart to write some more of these wonderful monologues, to celebrate 20 years of "talking heads"?
3. BBC: bring them back!! Show them again, all thirteen of them, and do so every year, please.
Second chances are a good thing..., 19 Sep 2006
I too had to study the Bennett monologues at `A' level, and found it hard work - in fact, I came out of the whole ordeal with a great disliking for Bennetts work. However, I recently found myself with some time to spare and so I decided I'd perhaps give the monologues a second chance. I'm glad I did. Second time around I found the tales of each of the characters to be highly enjoyable. The characters were extremely well drawn and likable - be it the naive actress Lesley in `Her Big Chance' comparing the differences of a German director of an adult film to Polanski, or the rather sad character of Graham, dependent on his mother and horrified when she starts to have a life without him. Personally, I liked the story told by Miss Ruddock, that of someone obviously in need of attention and trying so hard to get it.
Bennett has captured perfectly the nature and personality of the simple characters in each of his stories and manages to recount each tale in both a humorous and touching way. The stories leave you caring for each of the main figures, each broken in some way and most of them blind to the fact.
Once again, I can only say how glad I am to have revisited this work and offer my apologies to the author for missing the point in the first place!
review of talking heads, 25 Jun 2005
Having to study Alan Bennet's talking heads for A-level, I can honestly say that it was an arduous task. It was near on impossible to write one thousand words on this travesty, as there is just no substance to his work. Bennet presents us with six characters. The format is the same with each, (except possibly Celia and Violet), there's some bizzare macabre secret that comes to be revealed, Wilfred is a peadophile, Marjory's Husband is a murderer etc. Wow, big deal. Bennet plays with appearance and deception. *STOP THE PRESSES!* I have grown up exposed to ardent praise of Bennet from my parents, who were born some time after the war. When I lived at home, Bennet truly was a sanctimonious icon of british drama, and regarded as a genius of his day. Maybe I'm young and just 'unaware', but I really can't see what all the fuss is about, and I really can't see Bennet's 'genius'. He achieves nothing new here, and Im just glad my A-levels are over. Avoid this at all costs.
Observational Genius!, 15 Nov 2002
Breathtaking is a word so often used to describe an offering from any artist, but this truly is. From simply observing the different and sometimes darkest side of human nature you find yourself completely engrosed and almost personally attatched to each charachter. His ability to exploit humor, and then drift into sadness and frustration without even seeming to step aside is superb. Within afew lines, even as early as the preliminary "setting", the personal effect his writing has takes you instantly into the situation and leaves you unable to exit until the sometimes bitter,sometimes hilarous, but always intriguing end. Each charachter seems genuinely real, the ordinary lives turning out as anything but. Of all this writers brilliant work this is unboubtedly the best (although "The Lady In The Van" is also worth a look, as is "Telling tales"...)to name but afew.
Amust for any fan of literature.
Music lessons made easy, 21 Sep 2003
This book is very easy to use with practical suggestions for planning and implementing music in the classroom. The range of songs provided on the CD are entertaining and lively, which have been very popluar with the children.
Classic Bennett....., 09 Apr 2007
3 of Alan Bennett`s short plays including 2 of his favourite leading ladies , Dame Thora and Patricia Routledge. I had read the first two before , the third , a dialogue between himself and Dame Judi Dench was a stranger to me . This collection is classic Bennett at it`s very best -- a joy to listen to . Hopefully more of his early works will find their way onto disc soon.
peerless, 02 Nov 2002
If you are looking for a recording of one of the greatest plays ever written or love this play anyway, buy, buy this recording. This production assembles a truly magnificent cast headed by Paul Schofield whose Lear, recorded at around 80, is breath-taking. I don't know of a finer recording of Shakespeare. Lauded by the press, you don't even have to know the text or be 'into' theatre to be drawn into this drama. Harriet Watrer, Alec McCowan, Kenneth Branagh - what a cast! Branach perhaps is a bit irritating as the fool, but that is my only cavil. I love this recording - one to return to again and again. I'm not ashamed to say I wept at the end.
A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.
Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book. Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.
A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.
From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.
Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago, 31 Dec 2000
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.
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Customer Reviews
Pure Delight, 22 Nov 2007
This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.
This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.
I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.
A masterpiece.
Hunting on pig-back, he shoots down the wild giblets, 24 Aug 2006
Excellent - improves every time I listen to it.
Don't be put off by the arty context its easy to listen to...
Original 1954 recording with Richard Burton, all-Welsh cast., 04 Jan 2006
Written as a "play for voices" for the BBC, this historic audiotape features the all-Welsh cast of the original BBC production from 1954. Richard Burton is the First Voice, which connects all the characters, played by twenty-eight men, women, and children. With perfect diction and the sense of charact | | |