Wilde believed in art for art's own sake, which explains why he emphasized beauty while his contemporaries were dealing with the problems of industrial England. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is set among the upper class, making fun of their excesses and absurdities while imbuing them with witty banter providing a constant stream of epigrams. The play's situation is simple in its unraveling complexity. Algernon Moncrieff is an upper-class English bachelor who is visited by his friend Jack Worthing, who is known as "Ernest." Jack has come to town to propose to Gwendolen Fairfax, the daugher of the imposing Lady Bracknell and Algy's first cousin. Jack has a ward named Cecily who lives in the country while Algernon has an imaginary friend named "Bunbury" whom he uses as an excuse to get out of social engagements.

Jack proposes to Gwendolen but has two problems. First, Gwendolen is wiling to agree because his name is Ernest, a name that "seems to inspire absolute confidence," but which, of course, is not his true Christian name. Second, Lady Bracknell objects to Jack as a suitor when she learns he was abandoned by his parents and found in a handbag in Victoria Station by Mr. Thomas Cardew. Meanwhile, Algernon heads off to the country to check out Cecily, to whom he introduces himself as being her guardian Jack's brother Ernest. This meets with Ceclily's approval because in her diary she has been writing about her engagement to a man named Ernest. Then things get really interesting.

Wilde proves once and for all time that the pun can indeed be elevated to a high art form. Throughout the entire play we have the double meaning of the word "earnest," almost to the level of a conceit, since many of the play's twists and turns deal with the efforts of Jack and Algernon to be "Ernest," by lying, only to discover that circumstances makes honest men of them in the end (and of the women for that matter as well). There is every reason to believe that Wilde was making a point about earnestness being a key ideal of Victorian culture and one worthy of being thoroughly and completely mocked. Granted, some of the puns are really bad, and the discussion of "Bunburying" is so bad it is stands alone in that regard, but there is a sense in which the bad ones only make the good ones so glorious and emphasize that Wilde is at his best while playing games with the English language.

But if Wilde's puns are the low road then his epigrams represent the heights of his genius, especially when they are used by the characters in an ironic vein (e.g., "It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal" and "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance"). Jack is the male lead, but it is Algernon who represents the ideal Wilde character, who insists he is a rebel speaking out against the institutions of society, such as marriage, but with attacks that are so flamboyant and humorous that the cleverness of the humor ends up standing apart from the inherent point.

In the end, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is the wittiest play every written, in English or any other language, and I doubt that anything written in the future will come close. Wilde was essentially a stand-up comedian who managed to create a narrative in which he could get off dozens of classic one-liners given a high-class sheen by being labeled epigrams. Like a comedian he touches on several topics, from the aristocracy, marriage, and the literary world to English manners, women, love, religion, and anything else that came to his fertile mind. But because it is done with such a lighthearted tone that the barbs remain as timely today as they were at the end of the 19th-century and "The Importance of Being Earnest" will always be at the forefront of the plays of that time which will continue to be produced.

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

Wilde believed in art for art's own sake, which explains why he emphasized beauty while his contemporaries were dealing with the problems of industrial England. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is set among the upper class, making fun of their excesses and absurdities while imbuing them with witty banter providing a constant stream of epigrams. The play's situation is simple in its unraveling complexity. Algernon Moncrieff is an upper-class English bachelor who is visited by his friend Jack Worthing, who is known as "Ernest." Jack has come to town to propose to Gwendolen Fairfax, the daugher of the imposing Lady Bracknell and Algy's first cousin. Jack has a ward named Cecily who lives in the country while Algernon has an imaginary friend named "Bunbury" whom he uses as an excuse to get out of social engagements.

Jack proposes to Gwendolen but has two problems. First, Gwendolen is wiling to agree because his name is Ernest, a name that "seems to inspire absolute confidence," but which, of course, is not his true Christian name. Second, Lady Bracknell objects to Jack as a suitor when she learns he was abandoned by his parents and found in a handbag in Victoria Station by Mr. Thomas Cardew. Meanwhile, Algernon heads off to the country to check out Cecily, to whom he introduces himself as being her guardian Jack's brother Ernest. This meets with Ceclily's approval because in her diary she has been writing about her engagement to a man named Ernest. Then things get really interesting.

Wilde proves once and for all time that the pun can indeed be elevated to a high art form. Throughout the entire play we have the double meaning of the word "earnest," almost to the level of a conceit, since many of the play's twists and turns deal with the efforts of Jack and Algernon to be "Ernest," by lying, only to discover that circumstances makes honest men of them in the end (and of the women for that matter as well). There is every reason to believe that Wilde was making a point about earnestness being a key ideal of Victorian culture and one worthy of being thoroughly and completely mocked. Granted, some of the puns are really bad, and the discussion of "Bunburying" is so bad it is stands alone in that regard, but there is a sense in which the bad ones only make the good ones so glorious and emphasize that Wilde is at his best while playing games with the English language.

But if Wilde's puns are the low road then his epigrams represent the heights of his genius, especially when they are used by the characters in an ironic vein (e.g., "It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal" and "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance"). Jack is the male lead, but it is Algernon who represents the ideal Wilde character, who insists he is a rebel speaking out against the institutions of society, such as marriage, but with attacks that are so flamboyant and humorous that the cleverness of the humor ends up standing apart from the inherent point.

In the end, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is the wittiest play every written, in English or any other language, and I doubt that anything written in the future will come close. Wilde was essentially a stand-up comedian who managed to create a narrative in which he could get off dozens of classic one-liners given a high-class sheen by being labeled epigrams. Like a comedian he touches on several topics, from the aristocracy, marriage, and the literary world to English manners, women, love, religion, and anything else that came to his fertile mind. But because it is done with such a lighthearted tone that the barbs remain as timely today as they were at the end of the 19th-century and "The Importance of Being Earnest" will always be at the forefront of the plays of that time which will continue to be produced.

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.

Wilde believed in art for art's own sake, which explains why he emphasized beauty while his contemporaries were dealing with the problems of industrial England. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is set among the upper class, making fun of their excesses and absurdities while imbuing them with witty banter providing a constant stream of epigrams. The play's situation is simple in its unraveling complexity. Algernon Moncrieff is an upper-class English bachelor who is visited by his friend Jack Worthing, who is known as "Ernest." Jack has come to town to propose to Gwendolen Fairfax, the daugher of the imposing Lady Bracknell and Algy's first cousin. Jack has a ward named Cecily who lives in the country while Algernon has an imaginary friend named "Bunbury" whom he uses as an excuse to get out of social engagements.

Jack proposes to Gwendolen but has two problems. First, Gwendolen is wiling to agree because his name is Ernest, a name that "seems to inspire absolute confidence," but which, of course, is not his true Christian name. Second, Lady Bracknell objects to Jack as a suitor when she learns he was abandoned by his parents and found in a handbag in Victoria Station by Mr. Thomas Cardew. Meanwhile, Algernon heads off to the country to check out Cecily, to whom he introduces himself as being her guardian Jack's brother Ernest. This meets with Ceclily's approval because in her diary she has been writing about her engagement to a man named Ernest. Then things get really interesting.

Wilde proves once and for all time that the pun can indeed be elevated to a high art form. Throughout the entire play we have the double meaning of the word "earnest," almost to the level of a conceit, since many of the play's twists and turns deal with the efforts of Jack and Algernon to be "Ernest," by lying, only to discover that circumstances makes honest men of them in the end (and of the women for that matter as well). There is every reason to believe that Wilde was making a point about earnestness being a key ideal of Victorian culture and one worthy of being thoroughly and completely mocked. Granted, some of the puns are really bad, and the discussion of "Bunburying" is so bad it is stands alone in that regard, but there is a sense in which the bad ones only make the good ones so glorious and emphasize that Wilde is at his best while playing games with the English language.

But if Wilde's puns are the low road then his epigrams represent the heights of his genius, especially when they are used by the characters in an ironic vein (e.g., "It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal" and "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance"). Jack is the male lead, but it is Algernon who represents the ideal Wilde character, who insists he is a rebel speaking out against the institutions of society, such as marriage, but with attacks that are so flamboyant and humorous that the cleverness of the humor ends up standing apart from the inherent point.

In the end, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is the wittiest play every written, in English or any other language, and I doubt that anything written in the future will come close. Wilde was essentially a stand-up comedian who managed to create a narrative in which he could get off dozens of classic one-liners given a high-class sheen by being labeled epigrams. Like a comedian he touches on several topics, from the aristocracy, marriage, and the literary world to English manners, women, love, religion, and anything else that came to his fertile mind. But because it is done with such a lighthearted tone that the barbs remain as timely today as they were at the end of the 19th-century and "The Importance of Being Earnest" will always be at the forefront of the plays of that time which will continue to be produced.

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.

Great, but flawed, 11 Oct 2008
I don't want to rain on the parade, but, while this is a truly great book because of its content, the production of the book is flawed enough to be problematic. The paper is much too thin, making it hard, at times, to read the text. This is especially difficult for the introductory essays, which run across the entire page width. (The text of the plays themselves is in single columns, not double, as often in complete Shakespeare editions.) So if you buy this sight unseen, as I did, be aware that your reading experience may not be optimal.

A beautiful book, 15 Sep 2008
This is a gorgeous book to hold. The print quality is just right, and the all time master of the English language shines through. The footnotes don't alway's hit the right balance, between excess and shortage, but are never intrusive. It is still amazing to me that this man, from so long ago, in such a different age and circumstance, without the advantages we enjoy, should still stand unparalleled as the greatest writer in English with depth, insight and poetry dripping constantly from the mouths of his dramatic creations. If you baulk at the price, by all means enjoy a cheaper copy, there'll be some in your nearby charity shop, but this edition is well worth it to me.

All the world and more is here, 19 Aug 2008
In his foreword to this magnificent edition, Michael Boyd reminds us that Shakespeare's plays were originally scripts for companies of actors and "not written as literature" to be read in an armchair at home. Performance is what matters, and the reading of the text is always going to be an incomplete experience in comparison. So why bother? For me, that incompleteness is still going to be more rewarding than reading most books ever published, but the real payoff comes next time I see the play performed, when I'm that little bit more prepared, that little bit less confused by the language, and that little bit more ready to appreciate a great performance, whether it's by a star actor on a national stage or a complete unknown at a fringe venue. This edition works in so many ways to make our experience of Shakespeare more complete.

The General Introduction by Jonathan Bate covers a lot of familiar territory - Shakespeare's life in Stratford, his early reputation as the "upstart crow", his rise to preeminence as scriptwriter for and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and so on, and the problem for any writer on Shakespeare is how to stitch our patchwork knowledge into a finer garment, how to find a new angle without resorting to arcane questions that are of scholarly interest only. Bate's command of the material and his choice of detail, his straightforward style that never fakes meaning with jargon, and the consistent perspective that emphasizes performance, all work towards opening up these million or so words. There is a refreshing emphasis on just how much we do know, contradicting the common view trotted out even in the RSC's own programmes that "very little is known" of his life. Bate acknowledges that we "will never know what drove his ambition" but Shakespeare is far from being the cipher so beloved of anti-Stratfordians.

The brief introductory essays to each play continue in this elegant way by avoiding stale opinion on the one hand and abstruse academic innovation on the other. They are a model of clarity and lucidity, as though he instinctively realizes that since reading the plays itself involves dealing with multiply-layered words he won't add to your burden. Much Ado, for example, begins "with the end of a war" and moves from combat to courtship. The change of mood is abrupt with the interruption of Hero and Claudio's wedding, and Bate captures this in language we can all understand: "Its atmosphere has been all holiday. No more." There is a crispness that makes me feel I'm learning something new even when it comes to the more familiar plays. As for a less well known play like Timon, he has the knack of drawing you in with a surprising fact: it's unique in that no one in the play "has a blood relationship to anyone else". A detail like this is a fascinating bit of fuel to get you up and running (or at least walking with determination!).

Like the Bible, the plays present textual problems in that no original manuscripts survive and there are different versions of many passages. Decisions have to be made, the key one for this edition being to base it on the 1623 First Folio. This "solves" at a stroke the difficult problem of how best to combine the different versions into one. Textual questions (often fascinating in their own right) over Quarto and Folio readings are gathered together at the end of each play, in contrast to, for example, the Arden editions, which can often have such long footnotes that there is only space for a couple of lines of the play, which is always to get the balance wrong. There is no such intrusion here: on any given page it is clear what takes precedence, the play itself, laid out in single column with all the elements working efficiently around it.

Notes are handled in small type at the foot of the page, each word or phrase repeated in bold following the line number (so avoiding markers in the text). These usually give one or more meanings, the majority of which are helpful. Only rarely is there a sign of dumbing down, as when "Florentine" is glossed as a "person from the city of Florence, in north-west Italy". More fascinating and subversive of polite society is the anti-Bowdlerization at work. Lewd meanings are unashamedly (and in surprising numbers) laid bare. Mistress Quickly's complaint that her "case is open to the world" causes no titters from most audiences, who are innocent in their ignorance of Shakespeare's appetite for filth. Parents and teachers be warned: keep this out of reach of your children - it's full of sex and knife crime and should on no account be allowed in the classroom!

Hamlet admires the travelling players who have returned to Elsinore as "the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time". For anyone who's sat through a seemingly interminable production of Shakespeare, it may seem incredible that there's anything brief about his plays, but for most of the original audience, wanting to be told stories of their nation's history, Holinshed's massive volumes were never an option and an afternoon on the South Bank was a no-brainer. Unlike that original theatre-going public, we're lucky to have his plays to read and study outside the playhouse, but we should not forget where it all started.

I've read enough of the two thousand pages to give it five stars, which is not a judgement on Shakespeare (he hardly needs my endorsement) but on how he's been packaged. Most wrappers get ripped off and thrown away: this one is made of finer material and will serve anyone with even a smattering of interest in our greatest writer. Just don't expect to read it on the bus.


Ten star review, 01 Jun 2008
I had this given as a birthday presant and all i can say is WOW.I have only recently got into Shakespeare and have seen a couple of the plays already and i just wanted to enchance my viewing of them,as i,m going to see four this year.And this book dose it.Its brilliantly put together with every thing W.S. wrote and more I think!.If could put TEN stars at the top i would.

The right 'Shakespeare Complete Works' for the right person..., 27 May 2008
One of the features that is most attractive about this latest edition of Shakespeare's plays is its layout. The text is of a pleasantly large size, and glosses of the meanings of certain words is easy to access at the bottom of the page. The introductions are great - although in other editions there are more extensive and/or scholarly introductions to the plays, these are well written, and are still very readable if you are about to read the play for the first time. The style of writing is pleasantly unassuming in that respect. So for people reading Shakespeare for pleasure I would highly recommend this book.
However, at points in my degree I've slightly regretted my choice, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the paper, to allow the book to be not too thick whilst having text occurring in only one column per page, must be very thin. As a consequence of this it tends to wrinkle slightly if you put your fingers on it for too long. The Riverside Shakespeare solves this problem because it has text in two columns down the page, (it still has glosses of difficult words at the bottom of the page) and this allows the paper to be slightly thicker, and so you are not worried that you are going to tear it.
The text itself is pretty good, although it sometimes differs quite strongly from the Arden text. This is not a fault in itself, but as the Arden text is the major editing of our time, this can sometimes cause slight problems. Of course, if you're not doing a degree when you need to read literature about the texts then this will not apply to you. An example would be the play 'Hamlet', where the quarto text is a lot longer than the folio text, and this text sticks to the folio text. This is okay, but the Norton edition, I think, gets round this really well by putting the bits which are in the quarto but not in the folio, in their place but in italics. That is really useful.
Anyhow, unless your hoping to study shakespeare at a advanced level this text is fine. It is really beautifully presented, and easy to access.

Wilde believed in art for art's own sake, which explains why he emphasized beauty while his contemporaries were dealing with the problems of industrial England. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is set among the upper class, making fun of their excesses and absurdities while imbuing them with witty banter providing a constant stream of epigrams. The play's situation is simple in its unraveling complexity. Algernon Moncrieff is an upper-class English bachelor who is visited by his friend Jack Worthing, who is known as "Ernest." Jack has come to town to propose to Gwendolen Fairfax, the daugher of the imposing Lady Bracknell and Algy's first cousin. Jack has a ward named Cecily who lives in the country while Algernon has an imaginary friend named "Bunbury" whom he uses as an excuse to get out of social engagements.

Jack proposes to Gwendolen but has two problems. First, Gwendolen is wiling to agree because his name is Ernest, a name that "seems to inspire absolute confidence," but which, of course, is not his true Christian name. Second, Lady Bracknell objects to Jack as a suitor when she learns he was abandoned by his parents and found in a handbag in Victoria Station by Mr. Thomas Cardew. Meanwhile, Algernon heads off to the country to check out Cecily, to whom he introduces himself as being her guardian Jack's brother Ernest. This meets with Ceclily's approval because in her diary she has been writing about her engagement to a man named Ernest. Then things get really interesting.

Wilde proves once and for all time that the pun can indeed be elevated to a high art form. Throughout the entire play we have the double meaning of the word "earnest," almost to the level of a conceit, since many of the play's twists and turns deal with the efforts of Jack and Algernon to be "Ernest," by lying, only to discover that circumstances makes honest men of them in the end (and of the women for that matter as well). There is every reason to believe that Wilde was making a point about earnestness being a key ideal of Victorian culture and one worthy of being thoroughly and completely mocked. Granted, some of the puns are really bad, and the discussion of "Bunburying" is so bad it is stands alone in that regard, but there is a sense in which the bad ones only make the good ones so glorious and emphasize that Wilde is at his best while playing games with the English language.

But if Wilde's puns are the low road then his epigrams represent the heights of his genius, especially when they are used by the characters in an ironic vein (e.g., "It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal" and "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance"). Jack is the male lead, but it is Algernon who represents the ideal Wilde character, who insists he is a rebel speaking out against the institutions of society, such as marriage, but with attacks that are so flamboyant and humorous that the cleverness of the humor ends up standing apart from the inherent point.

In the end, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is the wittiest play every written, in English or any other language, and I doubt that anything written in the future will come close. Wilde was essentially a stand-up comedian who managed to create a narrative in which he could get off dozens of classic one-liners given a high-class sheen by being labeled epigrams. Like a comedian he touches on several topics, from the aristocracy, marriage, and the literary world to English manners, women, love, religion, and anything else that came to his fertile mind. But because it is done with such a lighthearted tone that the barbs remain as timely today as they were at the end of the 19th-century and "The Importance of Being Earnest" will always be at the forefront of the plays of that time which will continue to be produced.

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.

Great, but flawed, 11 Oct 2008
I don't want to rain on the parade, but, while this is a truly great book because of its content, the production of the book is flawed enough to be problematic. The paper is much too thin, making it hard, at times, to read the text. This is especially difficult for the introductory essays, which run across the entire page width. (The text of the plays themselves is in single columns, not double, as often in complete Shakespeare editions.) So if you buy this sight unseen, as I did, be aware that your reading experience may not be optimal.

A beautiful book, 15 Sep 2008
This is a gorgeous book to hold. The print quality is just right, and the all time master of the English language shines through. The footnotes don't alway's hit the right balance, between excess and shortage, but are never intrusive. It is still amazing to me that this man, from so long ago, in such a different age and circumstance, without the advantages we enjoy, should still stand unparalleled as the greatest writer in English with depth, insight and poetry dripping constantly from the mouths of his dramatic creations. If you baulk at the price, by all means enjoy a cheaper copy, there'll be some in your nearby charity shop, but this edition is well worth it to me.

All the world and more is here, 19 Aug 2008
In his foreword to this magnificent edition, Michael Boyd reminds us that Shakespeare's plays were originally scripts for companies of actors and "not written as literature" to be read in an armchair at home. Performance is what matters, and the reading of the text is always going to be an incomplete experience in comparison. So why bother? For me, that incompleteness is still going to be more rewarding than reading most books ever published, but the real payoff comes next time I see the play performed, when I'm that little bit more prepared, that little bit less confused by the language, and that little bit more ready to appreciate a great performance, whether it's by a star actor on a national stage or a complete unknown at a fringe venue. This edition works in so many ways to make our experience of Shakespeare more complete.

The General Introduction by Jonathan Bate covers a lot of familiar territory - Shakespeare's life in Stratford, his early reputation as the "upstart crow", his rise to preeminence as scriptwriter for and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and so on, and the problem for any writer on Shakespeare is how to stitch our patchwork knowledge into a finer garment, how to find a new angle without resorting to arcane questions that are of scholarly interest only. Bate's command of the material and his choice of detail, his straightforward style that never fakes meaning with jargon, and the consistent perspective that emphasizes performance, all work towards opening up these million or so words. There is a refreshing emphasis on just how much we do know, contradicting the common view trotted out even in the RSC's own programmes that "very little is known" of his life. Bate acknowledges that we "will never know what drove his ambition" but Shakespeare is far from being the cipher so beloved of anti-Stratfordians.

The brief introductory essays to each play continue in this elegant way by avoiding stale opinion on the one hand and abstruse academic innovation on the other. They are a model of clarity and lucidity, as though he instinctively realizes that since reading the plays itself involves dealing with multiply-layered words he won't add to your burden. Much Ado, for example, begins "with the end of a war" and moves from combat to courtship. The change of mood is abrupt with the interruption of Hero and Claudio's wedding, and Bate captures this in language we can all understand: "Its atmosphere has been all holiday. No more." There is a crispness that makes me feel I'm learning something new even when it comes to the more familiar plays. As for a less well known play like Timon, he has the knack of drawing you in with a surprising fact: it's unique in that no one in the play "has a blood relationship to anyone else". A detail like this is a fascinating bit of fuel to get you up and running (or at least walking with determination!).

Like the Bible, the plays present textual problems in that no original manuscripts survive and there are different versions of many passages. Decisions have to be made, the key one for this edition being to base it on the 1623 First Folio. This "solves" at a stroke the difficult problem of how best to combine the different versions into one. Textual questions (often fascinating in their own right) over Quarto and Folio readings are gathered together at the end of each play, in contrast to, for example, the Arden editions, which can often have such long footnotes that there is only space for a couple of lines of the play, which is always to get the balance wrong. There is no such intrusion here: on any given page it is clear what takes precedence, the play itself, laid out in single column with all the elements working efficiently around it.

Notes are handled in small type at the foot of the page, each word or phrase repeated in bold following the line number (so avoiding markers in the text). These usually give one or more meanings, the majority of which are helpful. Only rarely is there a sign of dumbing down, as when "Florentine" is glossed as a "person from the city of Florence, in north-west Italy". More fascinating and subversive of polite society is the anti-Bowdlerization at work. Lewd meanings are unashamedly (and in surprising numbers) laid bare. Mistress Quickly's complaint that her "case is open to the world" causes no titters from most audiences, who are innocent in their ignorance of Shakespeare's appetite for filth. Parents and teachers be warned: keep this out of reach of your children - it's full of sex and knife crime and should on no account be allowed in the classroom!

Hamlet admires the travelling players who have returned to Elsinore as "the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time". For anyone who's sat through a seemingly interminable production of Shakespeare, it may seem incredible that there's anything brief about his plays, but for most of the original audience, wanting to be told stories of their nation's history, Holinshed's massive volumes were never an option and an afternoon on the South Bank was a no-brainer. Unlike that original theatre-going public, we're lucky to have his plays to read and study outside the playhouse, but we should not forget where it all started.

I've read enough of the two thousand pages to give it five stars, which is not a judgement on Shakespeare (he hardly needs my endorsement) but on how he's been packaged. Most wrappers get ripped off and thrown away: this one is made of finer material and will serve anyone with even a smattering of interest in our greatest writer. Just don't expect to read it on the bus.


Ten star review, 01 Jun 2008
I had this given as a birthday presant and all i can say is WOW.I have only recently got into Shakespeare and have seen a couple of the plays already and i just wanted to enchance my viewing of them,as i,m going to see four this year.And this book dose it.Its brilliantly put together with every thing W.S. wrote and more I think!.If could put TEN stars at the top i would.

The right 'Shakespeare Complete Works' for the right person..., 27 May 2008
One of the features that is most attractive about this latest edition of Shakespeare's plays is its layout. The text is of a pleasantly large size, and glosses of the meanings of certain words is easy to access at the bottom of the page. The introductions are great - although in other editions there are more extensive and/or scholarly introductions to the plays, these are well written, and are still very readable if you are about to read the play for the first time. The style of writing is pleasantly unassuming in that respect. So for people reading Shakespeare for pleasure I would highly recommend this book.
However, at points in my degree I've slightly regretted my choice, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the paper, to allow the book to be not too thick whilst having text occurring in only one column per page, must be very thin. As a consequence of this it tends to wrinkle slightly if you put your fingers on it for too long. The Riverside Shakespeare solves this problem because it has text in two columns down the page, (it still has glosses of difficult words at the bottom of the page) and this allows the paper to be slightly thicker, and so you are not worried that you are going to tear it.
The text itself is pretty good, although it sometimes differs quite strongly from the Arden text. This is not a fault in itself, but as the Arden text is the major editing of our time, this can sometimes cause slight problems. Of course, if you're not doing a degree when you need to read literature about the texts then this will not apply to you. An example would be the play 'Hamlet', where the quarto text is a lot longer than the folio text, and this text sticks to the folio text. This is okay, but the Norton edition, I think, gets round this really well by putting the bits which are in the quarto but not in the folio, in their place but in italics. That is really useful.
Anyhow, unless your hoping to study shakespeare at a advanced level this text is fine. It is really beautifully presented, and easy to access.

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.

Wilde believed in art for art's own sake, which explains why he emphasized beauty while his contemporaries were dealing with the problems of industrial England. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is set among the upper class, making fun of their excesses and absurdities while imbuing them with witty banter providing a constant stream of epigrams. The play's situation is simple in its unraveling complexity. Algernon Moncrieff is an upper-class English bachelor who is visited by his friend Jack Worthing, who is known as "Ernest." Jack has come to town to propose to Gwendolen Fairfax, the daugher of the imposing Lady Bracknell and Algy's first cousin. Jack has a ward named Cecily who lives in the country while Algernon has an imaginary friend named "Bunbury" whom he uses as an excuse to get out of social engagements.

Jack proposes to Gwendolen but has two problems. First, Gwendolen is wiling to agree because his name is Ernest, a name that "seems to inspire absolute confidence," but which, of course, is not his true Christian name. Second, Lady Bracknell objects to Jack as a suitor when she learns he was abandoned by his parents and found in a handbag in Victoria Station by Mr. Thomas Cardew. Meanwhile, Algernon heads off to the country to check out Cecily, to whom he introduces himself as being her guardian Jack's brother Ernest. This meets with Ceclily's approval because in her diary she has been writing about her engagement to a man named Ernest. Then things get really interesting.

Wilde proves once and for all time that the pun can indeed be elevated to a high art form. Throughout the entire play we have the double meaning of the word "earnest," almost to the level of a conceit, since many of the play's twists and turns deal with the efforts of Jack and Algernon to be "Ernest," by lying, only to discover that circumstances makes honest men of them in the end (and of the women for that matter as well). There is every reason to believe that Wilde was making a point about earnestness being a key ideal of Victorian culture and one worthy of being thoroughly and completely mocked. Granted, some of the puns are really bad, and the discussion of "Bunburying" is so bad it is stands alone in that regard, but there is a sense in which the bad ones only make the good ones so glorious and emphasize that Wilde is at his best while playing games with the English language.

But if Wilde's puns are the low road then his epigrams represent the heights of his genius, especially when they are used by the characters in an ironic vein (e.g., "It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal" and "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance"). Jack is the male lead, but it is Algernon who represents the ideal Wilde character, who insists he is a rebel speaking out against the institutions of society, such as marriage, but with attacks that are so flamboyant and humorous that the cleverness of the humor ends up standing apart from the inherent point.

In the end, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is the wittiest play every written, in English or any other language, and I doubt that anything written in the future will come close. Wilde was essentially a stand-up comedian who managed to create a narrative in which he could get off dozens of classic one-liners given a high-class sheen by being labeled epigrams. Like a comedian he touches on several topics, from the aristocracy, marriage, and the literary world to English manners, women, love, religion, and anything else that came to his fertile mind. But because it is done with such a lighthearted tone that the barbs remain as timely today as they were at the end of the 19th-century and "The Importance of Being Earnest" will always be at the forefront of the plays of that time which will continue to be produced.

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.

Great, but flawed, 11 Oct 2008
I don't want to rain on the parade, but, while this is a truly great book because of its content, the production of the book is flawed enough to be problematic. The paper is much too thin, making it hard, at times, to read the text. This is especially difficult for the introductory essays, which run across the entire page width. (The text of the plays themselves is in single columns, not double, as often in complete Shakespeare editions.) So if you buy this sight unseen, as I did, be aware that your reading experience may not be optimal.

A beautiful book, 15 Sep 2008
This is a gorgeous book to hold. The print quality is just right, and the all time master of the English language shines through. The footnotes don't alway's hit the right balance, between excess and shortage, but are never intrusive. It is still amazing to me that this man, from so long ago, in such a different age and circumstance, without the advantages we enjoy, should still stand unparalleled as the greatest writer in English with depth, insight and poetry dripping constantly from the mouths of his dramatic creations. If you baulk at the price, by all means enjoy a cheaper copy, there'll be some in your nearby charity shop, but this edition is well worth it to me.

All the world and more is here, 19 Aug 2008
In his foreword to this magnificent edition, Michael Boyd reminds us that Shakespeare's plays were originally scripts for companies of actors and "not written as literature" to be read in an armchair at home. Performance is what matters, and the reading of the text is always going to be an incomplete experience in comparison. So why bother? For me, that incompleteness is still going to be more rewarding than reading most books ever published, but the real payoff comes next time I see the play performed, when I'm that little bit more prepared, that little bit less confused by the language, and that little bit more ready to appreciate a great performance, whether it's by a star actor on a national stage or a complete unknown at a fringe venue. This edition works in so many ways to make our experience of Shakespeare more complete.

The General Introduction by Jonathan Bate covers a lot of familiar territory - Shakespeare's life in Stratford, his early reputation as the "upstart crow", his rise to preeminence as scriptwriter for and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and so on, and the problem for any writer on Shakespeare is how to stitch our patchwork knowledge into a finer garment, how to find a new angle without resorting to arcane questions that are of scholarly interest only. Bate's command of the material and his choice of detail, his straightforward style that never fakes meaning with jargon, and the consistent perspective that emphasizes performance, all work towards opening up these million or s