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Dylan Thomas Reading His Poetry: Complete & Unabridged

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: Dylan Thomas

January 01, 2007

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Under Milk Wood (BBC Radio Collection)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: Dylan Thomas

October 01, 1999
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 ... Read More:

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Ladies of Letters Say No (BBC Audio)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: C Hayman & L Wakefield

September 03, 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 ... Read More:

Average Rating:

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Music Express: Lesson Plans, Recordings, Activities and Photocopiables: Year 1 (Classroom Music): Lesson Plans, Recordings, Activities and Photocopiables: Year 1 (Classroom Music)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: Maureen Hanke, Helen MacGregor

June 28, 2002
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 ... Read More:

Average Rating:

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Talking Heads: No. 1 (BBC Radio Collection)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
from: BBC Audiobooks Ltd

October 01, 1999
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 ... Read More:

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Telling Tales (Radio Collection)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: Alan Bennett

November 06, 2000
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.

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Alan Bennett, Triple Bill

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: Alan Bennett

April 02, 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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Dylan Thomas at the "BBC" (Radio Collection)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: Dylan Thomas

October 06, 2003
Dylan Thomas reads his own poems and also some short stories. The readings are theatrical performances, and there was a genuine audience for them at the time. Poets reading their own work appear rarely on disk or tape. Recording was invneted at the end of the nineteenth century, so most of the great poets are, of course, excluded. There is a wax cylinder of a muffled Browning slightly misquoting How They Brought The Goods News from Ghent to Aix, but this is a curiosity.Most of the leading poets of the first half of the 20th century (lesser poets than their predecessors, though often with original and memorable styles) are unrecorded, but not Thomas. In the second half of the century many poets of the Arts Administration Age may have recorded their works, but one doubts whether ... Read More:

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The Nation's Favourite Poems (BBC Radio Collection)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
from: BBC Audiobooks Ltd

October 01, 1999
It was like this : I think I'll just have a lie down a listen to my new poetry CD. Nice poems, mellow voices and ...diddle - a dee, diddle a dee,
DIDDLE - A -DEE, DEE, DEE!!! What the heck is that electonic racket? The whole experience was ruined by the toy-like, tinny segue music between tracks. I'm going to have to " edit " these out. 'Tis a pity as the poetry is varied, entertaining and well read. I suppose if you planning to stay awake, it'll be O.K. but I'm going to knock off some stars for the unwelcome noise.

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King Lear (Naxos Audio)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Poetry and Drama
by: William Shakespeare

January 07, 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.