DYLAN THOMAS: RETURN JOURNEY delves into the melodious, silky lyricism of the 20th century poet, under the accomplished direction of world-renowned Oscar-winner, Sir Anthony Hopkins. Developed as one of the flagship events celebrating the 2014 Centenary of Dylan Thomas’ life, the veracious show is at the start of its Australian leg of a huge world tour.

A lectern and chair complete the set. Bob Kingdom emerges to the mostly naked stage, clad in an ill-fitting suit, bowtie and his best boaties: the attire of Thomas’ last lecture tour. This is more of an encounter, than a performance; a lecture more than a show. The whole time, I couldn’t help but think, thank god I didn’t bring my mother along. DYLAN THOMAS: RETURN JOURNEY is wordy, wistful and subtly witted, but by god is it arduous.

In this simple- yet inherently powerful – performance, Bob Kingdom embodies one of the world’s most acclaimed writers with great mastery. The mellifluous pronunciation and befitting humour with which he narrates the show is very captivating.

Against what I initially expected, is not a journey through the life and tribulations of Thomas; Kingdom’s bizarre anecdotes act as segues into his reading of selected poems, what initially seemed to give insight into Thomas’ poetic afflatus. Eventually I decided that the interspersed stories and poems made no linear sense whatsoever. The importance of the play is in the melody and lyrical sweetness of the language, rather than the meaning it produces. He’s even able to put finesse into “vomiting”, denoting it as “exhaling enthusiastically”.

I cannot praise Bob Kingdom’s impeccable performance highly enough. Dylan Thomas’ poetry is not an easy listen, let alone an easy read. Every verse is strewn with intricate alliteration, verbal obstacles and subtle references, all of which would be easy to understate. Yet Bob Kingdom recites every word, eloquently and with linguistic vigour, making little (if any) reference to his notes.

Unlike the depressing existentialism of his modernist counterparts, specifically T.S Elliot (whose name, he points out, would be ‘toilet’ backwards if he’d been a saint), Thomas worked more within the vein of Romanticism; the show emanates a fascination with nature and spoken language, both in the recited poems and anecdotes. It is a commemoration of Thomas as a masterful literary giant and his appreciation of the majesty of language itself. All of the classics get a show, from And Death Shall Have No Dominion to Do not go Gentle into that Good Night and while it has its dark moments, the monologue is ultimately a celebration of words, rarely fixating on the alcoholism that tragically led to the great poets’ premature demise.

While I admired Kingdom’s embodiment of Dylan Thomas, and reveled in the mastery of his writing, it was an exhausting experience for all involved; I remain in absolute awe of Kingdom’s capacity to perform spoken word poetry for 80 minutes without skipping a linguistic beat.

I’d highly recommend this show to any English major, dweller of poetry or those who often find themselves intrinsically fixated on the melodious possibilities of language.

DYLAN THOMAS: RETURN JOURNEY is only in the beginnings of a hefty Australian tour that is set to visit various venues in regional New South Wales next, starting on the 5th of August at the Orange Civic Theatre. Visit the Merrigong’s tour guide at http://www.merrigong.com.au/about-merrigong/on-tour.html for a full list of dates and venues.