Under Milk Wood | Get Your Coats On

“Who but Guy Masterson could do unabridged justice to the 69 ebullient inhabitants of Dylan Thomas’ masterpiece?”

Fringe history was made tonight. A milestone in the journey of the world’s greatest arts festival has been passed. There is a new towering landmark on the past horizon. Since 1947 creative people have been telling stories in venues big and small. The EICC is not a small venue and I have been on transoceanic flights with less comfortable seats. My date tells me that her ancestors’ ancestors owned a wine merchants on the site – perhaps they might have used the Victorian-era postbox on the street outside when its first coat of red paint was fresh. I wonder what those distant denizens of Edinburgh would make of EdFringe. Would they feel any sense of pride or ownership? Yes, I think they would have, if they could have seen the history that was made tonight.

Guy Masterson’s first landmark production was his 2003 smash hit ‘Twelve Angry Men’. It created ripples in the fabric of space-time, tugging at the cultural consciousness with a fresh reminder that EdFringe is a place where rising stars can go supernova. Even more importantly, Masterson’s 2019 success, ‘The Shark is Broken’, was possessed of sufficient momentum to escape the blackhole that was Lockdown and burst out over Broadway – raining down oodles of boxoffice cashish and critical acclaim in a then all-too-needed reminder that the arts are not peripheral, but essential to a good life on earth.

‘Under Milk Wood’ is a more personal, but no less monumental achievement. Who but Guy Masterson could do unabridged justice to the 69 ebullient inhabitants of Dylan Thomas’ masterpiece? First performed at EdFringe94, this epic recital has been performed over 2,000 times globally. Tonight the crowds have gathered to hear Captain Cat, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, Mr Pugh and Mrs Pugh and all the rest as they go about their extraordinarily ordinary day. Who but Guy Masterson could bring so much depth of feeling, so much animation, so much vim and vigour to the party? SPOILER ALERT: No one else could do this, it’s why the crowds have gathered in such numbers to witness this bardic quality swansong.

This performance was not without a lighting error and Farmer Watkins missed his cue, but these served the purpose of those deliberate tiny flaws in the pattern of a Persian carpet, which remind the viewer that total perfection is totally preserved to divinity. For all that Masterson is a big performer, he is too proud a Welshman ever once tp step into that limelight which properly belongs to Dylan Thomas alone. The poet is the star. Without scruples or diffidence, the artist on the stage is but a supporting artificer.

Here is a performance that could fit into any venue large or small from the backroom of an auld Edinburgh wine shop to a (slightly soulless) mega-venue in the same location. A chair, a set of pyjamas, some carefully choreographed lighting changes and a storied titan of storytelling who might have sat at the feet of blind Homer or his Brythonic counterparts.

At EdFringe each line spoken, each show performed, each production staged is, in reality, as ephemeral as a summer sea mist. But a few, a very few, live on in our collective memory setting the standard for art and artistry for all time to come. Scotland’s cultural capital and the world capital of Fringe theatre are richer for the work of Guy Masterson a genuine legend in his own day.

Get your coats on and hold onto your hats. There’s even greater things to come.