International Dylan Thomas Day is celebrated on May 14th, commemorating the life and work of the Welsh poet. To mark this, Andrew Dally of dylanthomasnews.com introduces us to Dylan Thomas’s link to the Festival of Britain.

The plaque, in memory of Dylan Thomas, laid in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey

In the spring of 1951, at the height of his broadcasting career with the BBC, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was invited to record a talk about the Festival of Britain. Thomas, known for poems such as Do No Go Gentle Into That Good Night,Fern Hill, and And Death Shall Have No Dominion, made over 140 broadcasts for the BBC, culminating in the seminal 1954 recording of his ‘play for voices’, Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton. Under Milk Wood was to be Thomas’s final piece for the BBC, only broadcast posthumously following the poet’s untimely death in…