UNDER Milk Wood belongs to the world – it's a universal piece. Not only does it have something to say, but it says it in a way that is almost unique with its degree of poetry and vernacular of the Welsh."

Owen Teale admits he was brought up on Dylan Thomas – in particular his last great achievement the play for voices Under Milk Wood.

At the age of ten he played lovelorn draper Mog Edwards, trapped in an eternal cycle of writing love letters across town to dressmaker Myfanwy Price.

And now he is playing the first voice – a part Thomas himself performed in New York, and later captured on record by Richard Burton and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

He is heading up a touring cast of 13 players from the Clwyd Theatr Cymru, 11 of whom take on more than 60 different inhabitants of the mystical town of Llareggub each night of the tour.

"The company has worked with each other on many different plays over the last 15 years," says director Terry Hands.

"It has been easy to balance out the casting with that knowledge of each other."

The four weeks of rehearsal focused solidly on the text itself.

"I needed to find out how to realise it in terms of the language and the audience's imagination," says Hands.

"We had to create a visual aspect for the audience as well as an auditory one, so they weren't just listening to theatre but were watching it too.

“We created two villages – the village of Llareggub, Thomas's imaginary township, and the village of actors on stage."

The end result was partly down to an aesthetic which cut out any extraneous props for the actors, and an innovative set by designer Martyn Bainbridge which sees a circle of seated actors, who never leave the stage, backed by a relief map of the small seaside town itself.

As one of two narrators Teale doesn't interact with the other actors onstage – instead providing the conduit between the audience and the characters.

"It's about losing yourself and hoping that the language will become a part of you," says Teale.

"It's not just narrating, it's about making it live in the moment and suspending the disbelief for the audience – akin to being in a pub after a few drinks talking about the place I came from and grew up in.

“It’s going down with this extraordinary poetry into a world of people's dreams. It's very funny and moving.

“I've performed it more than 100 times and each time I get to the last line I'm always filled with melancholy that the day is at an end.

“I have never done it when there hasn't been an audible sigh from the audience."

Set across one 24-hour period in the fictional town, Hands describes Under Milk Wood as a play in which nothing happens at all.

"We just have Thomas's vision," he says.

"He has this huge respect and love for this strange rural small town world, and the people who have never been heard of, or celebrated.

"The play is all the themes of a young man in his 30s – sex and death really.

“He's not only a great poet, but also a mischievous and extremely funny man.

“There is a lot of teasing within the play. He catches the comic dream images of a small town and sends it up to some extent."

Teale draws parallels between Thomas's play and the modern satire of Matt Lucas and David Walliams's Little Britain.

"When you're funny you can carry a political message much more quickly," he says. "Little Britain has this cast of extraordinary characters who are actually saying: 'Let's have a look at what's going on now'.

"Thomas gave Under Milk Wood the working title of The Town That Went Mad. The town has become so insular not only does it attract eccentric behaviour, but it becomes used to it, and the inhabitants can't get out of it."

Among the memorable characters are the postman and his wife who open everyone's mail before they deliver it, the twice-widowed Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard who dreams of nagging her ex-husbands every night, and Mr Pugh the would-be poisoner fantasising about murdering his sharp-tongued wife.

"There's Dai Bread the baker with his two wives, who should be in prison, but everyone accepts," says Teale.

"The Pughs’ battles are a tragic waste of a life – if they really hated each other that much then wouldn't they be better off if they stopped living together?

“It's the powerful humour of the plot situations – it is so entertaining the way it is written and the characters are so vivid that the audience escape into another world."

Teale has opted to treat the experience with humour – bringing out the laughter in the script.

"I don't think the Richard Burton recordings ever made me laugh although they might have made me smile or triggered my imagination," he says.

"With this production we get so much laughter we have to stop the show sometimes.

"As a narrator I like to share a look with the audience – as if I can't believe the characters just said that."

For Hands taking Under Milk Wood on tour as a Welsh company was a perfect opportunity. "I wanted to show our Welsh ensemble off in England," he says.

"Dylan Thomas was one of our great poets – he's not reverential or respectable, and never was he in life.

"Everywhere English is spoken the play seems to reveal itself as belonging to that place. The Welsh accent is so extraordinarily melodious – if you just shut your eyes and listen the sound of the voices is mesmeric."

Hands feels his take on Under Milk Wood has grown with every performance.

"We continue to learn from the audiences," he says. "All the actors get hints from how an audience reacts to a line – whether they get a whole laugh or a moment of silence."

He was particularly pleased to attract Teale to the central narrator role.

"It was a bit of a struggle," he confesses. "He's been so tied up with Game Of Thrones on television, but he loves the piece and loves Wales so we were able to find a way.

"The narrator is a very difficult role – he's the master of ceremonies mixed with a ringmaster.

"The Welsh love alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia – the language in Under Milk Wood is liquid, living and all-embracing.

“To play the narrator is like going out to bat number one at Lords – you can't have much more pressure than that."

Teale admits it is a very personal piece.

"I was born in Swansea, next to Cwmdonkin Park where Thomas played," he says.

"I was brought up in Port Talbot – the same town as Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.

“I feel a huge responsibility to bring all the experience I have had through Shakespeare and the plays I have performed, as well as bringing a degree of humour and naughtiness which is all part of the Welsh culture."

This touring production began life with a five-week run at Clywd Theatr's base in Mold, Flintshire, before going on its national tour.

Next year it will face its first US audiences, with Hands looking forward to returning to New York where Thomas premiered his six-year labour of love.

"In my experience the US is wonderfully open to any new experience," he says.

"The Welsh accent is something they go 'wow' over.

"Last year we wanted to open the production in November at the 92nd Street Y – the big hall where Thomas starred in the first recording of the play.

“The economics weren't possible but if we go back to New York we will certainly go along to the Y on a tribute evening perhaps."

It was in New York – having just completed Under Milk Wood – that Thomas died, only days after his 39th birthday.

Legend has it his last pub crawl included imbibing 18 straight whiskies at the now legendary White Horse pub before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.

He died a few days later having been admitted to St Vincent Hospital with breathing difficulties.

"It was such a tragedy," says Hands. "He was like a jet-setting pop star – in a way he just ground himself out.

“It was as much exhaustion as alcohol that killed him.

"He's still the favourite poet of Wales - more gets said about his contemporaries Philip Larkin and TS Eliot, but you can't ignore Dylan Thomas.

"Under Milk Wood was a phenomenal display of extraordinary poetic wizardry.

"One can only imagine what he could have produced in the next 20 years."

Owen’s treated like royalty

WITH appearances on Ruth Jones's Sky sitcom Stella, the BBC's Hollow Crown, Ballykissangel and Murphy's Law, Owen Teale has long been a familiar face on British television.

But his career has been changed completely by one particular role - that of Master-At-Arms of the Night's Watch Alliser Thorne on cult fantasy series Game Of Thrones.

When he speaks to The Guide he has just returned from a trip to New York.

"I've spent a lot of time in New York - I once won a Tony Award there," he says. "People are very cool – they might say 'great job' to you as they walk past.

"Since Game Of Thrones the amount of people who have come up to me asking to shake my hand, buy me a drink, or ask for a selfie is amazing – it has been everywhere I go."

Teale's character has been known for his brutal treatment to the heroic Jon Snow, his potential successor at Castle Black.

At the end of the fourth season of Game Of Thrones he refused to follow Snow's advice to seal off the castle to an army of wildlings - leading to a massive battle that formed the entirety of one episode.

"He would say he was in an impossible situation," says Teale of his character.

"He is training people in a sort of Foreign Legion - men who are criminals and rapists.

“He became Master-At-Arms after he lost a battle and was captured - I think he regrets he didn't take the opportunity of losing his life, and instead has had to live a life of shame."

Teale was particularly proud of the speech he gave to Snow ahead of the attack - which saw him later carted off for treatment from possibly fatal wounds.

"He explained to him the vicissitudes of leadership, being cruel and callous and not wavering on a group of people who are about to go into a war-like situation.

"He was first into the fight - he wasn't just a self-serving person looking to feather his own nest.

“The characters the scriptwriters have built up are fully rounded.

"I loved their confidence to do what they did, and create this hugely challenging technical episode - it was the first time they had done that.

"Game Of Thrones is an enormous cultural point on a world level - it has gone across the world from Russia to China. It's extraordinary to think it might bring people who might be interested to explore my culture with Under Milk Wood."