0:00:02 > 0:00:05In this former fishing village of Laugharne,
0:00:05 > 0:00:09is the shed where Dylan Thomas wrote his masterwork -
0:00:09 > 0:00:10Under Milk Wood.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14"To begin at the beginning."
0:00:14 > 0:00:17This is legendary pop artist Sir Peter Blake.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21"It is spring, moonless night in the small town..."
0:00:21 > 0:00:24And this is West London studio.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28Early art by Sir Peter defined an era.
0:00:31 > 0:00:36For more than 25 years, Sir Peter has been producing artworks
0:00:36 > 0:00:40inspired by the words of Under Milk Wood.
0:00:40 > 0:00:45"See the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and button tops,
0:00:45 > 0:00:50"bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and nail parings,
0:00:50 > 0:00:55"saliva and snowflakes and moulted feathers of dreams."
0:00:55 > 0:00:57Take these words and interpret them,
0:00:57 > 0:01:00and that's precisely what he's done.
0:01:00 > 0:01:06"The dead come out in their Sunday best. Listen to the night breaking."
0:01:06 > 0:01:09This extraordinary body of work includes
0:01:09 > 0:01:14over 60 portraits of every character in the Dylan Thomas Play For Voices.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17- "There's a husband for you. - Bad as his father.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19- "And you know where he ended. - In the asylum."
0:01:21 > 0:01:25There are 27 watercolour dream sequences.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29"'Don't spank me, please, teacher,' whimpers his wife at his side."
0:01:29 > 0:01:36Peter wants to love and adore the subject of his work.
0:01:36 > 0:01:37That's important to him.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39There are 50 new collages.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43"Nearly asleep in the field of nanny goats who hum
0:01:43 > 0:01:47"and gently butt the sun, she blows love on a puffball."
0:01:47 > 0:01:50And when words do that kind of lyrical thing,
0:01:50 > 0:01:55like they do in Under Milk Wood, it does kind of grab hold of you
0:01:55 > 0:01:58and as an artist, you want to visualise it.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01It was the difficulty and impossibleness
0:02:01 > 0:02:04that finally made it so exciting.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09But the Dylan Thomas centenary is approaching.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14An exhibition at the National Museum of Wales of Sir Peter's Under Milk Wood artworks
0:02:14 > 0:02:17means a deadline on Peter's never-ending obsession.
0:02:44 > 0:02:49Sir Peter's London studio is a collection of past obsessions,
0:02:49 > 0:02:54from Elvis to Marilyn,
0:02:54 > 0:02:58from boxers to badges.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02But the words of Under Milk Wood appear to have cast
0:03:02 > 0:03:03the ultimate spell.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08I've probably played it 200, 300 times.
0:03:11 > 0:03:17"And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now."
0:03:17 > 0:03:21I've worn out about 30 pairs of scissors.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29But in spite of a museum curator and a publisher
0:03:29 > 0:03:34breathing down Peter's neck, many of his artworks remain to be completed.
0:03:40 > 0:03:45Word of Sir Peter's Under Milk Wood inspired art is spreading.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48'Right now it's Cerys.'
0:03:48 > 0:03:51I've come across this artist who's as obsessed,
0:03:51 > 0:03:53probably more obsessed than me, about Dylan Thomas.
0:03:53 > 0:03:57In fact, he has had this project going for over 25 years,
0:03:57 > 0:03:59that is Peter Blake.
0:03:59 > 0:04:03Cerys Matthews has long been a champion of the Dylan Thomas legacy.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07I know it might be a never-ending journey, this.
0:04:07 > 0:04:09The best art never gets finished,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12it just has to be put out where you can get it.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19Absolutely tremendous stuff. Louis Armstrong, Potato Head Blues...
0:04:19 > 0:04:23Under Milk Wood begins in the pre-dawn hours of a village
0:04:23 > 0:04:27where its inhabitants are introduced by their surreal dreams.
0:04:28 > 0:04:34"Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux,
0:04:34 > 0:04:40"bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organ playing wood."
0:04:41 > 0:04:45It became a work of art rather than illustrations to a book
0:04:45 > 0:04:48with a deadline. It went beyond that.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52Sir Peter's consuming passion for Under Milk Wood
0:04:52 > 0:04:57began in 1986 with a modest proposal from book designer Michael Mitchell.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02He was going to illustrate it with, say, a dozen wood engravings.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08He had turned it into really quite a considerable obsession
0:05:08 > 0:05:10for a very busy man.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15It reached a point where I needed to go Laugharne
0:05:15 > 0:05:19to take some photographs and just to see Laugharne,
0:05:19 > 0:05:21see this town that Llareggub was based on.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26It was during Sir Peter's first visit to Laugharne in 1986,
0:05:26 > 0:05:28accompanied by Michael Mitchell,
0:05:28 > 0:05:32that the Under Milk Wood obsession unexpectedly took root.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38While we were wandering around the town, we went into the bookshop
0:05:38 > 0:05:44and to everyone's surprise, found Dylan Thomas's widow there.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48It was the first time she had been back for Laugharne for 30 years.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50She had left Laugharne when Dylan Thomas died,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54never gone back until that day, and there she was in the bookshop.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57Caitlin Thomas was there to promote a new memoir
0:05:57 > 0:06:00about life with Dylan Thomas.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04I mean, it is beyond understanding, really.
0:06:04 > 0:06:10And Peter saw this as a wonderful omen, so off we went.
0:06:10 > 0:06:16It was as if Dylan Thomas was egging Peter on from the grave.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19Somebody has left £1 and a penny.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23Tourists are used to throwing money into fountains and things.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29Laugharne was a remote and isolated fishing village
0:06:29 > 0:06:34when Dylan Thomas first visited in 1934.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37I think that Dylan Thomas arrived in Laugharne
0:06:37 > 0:06:39and felt quite at home, because he was a character
0:06:39 > 0:06:42and here was a town full of characters as well.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45Laugharne was one of the inspirations
0:06:45 > 0:06:48for Thomas's fictional town of Llareggub.
0:06:49 > 0:06:53I wonder if we are on Llareggub Hill here.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58You wonder whether this is what he would've looked up at from the boathouse.
0:07:00 > 0:07:05Eventually, Dylan and his wife Caitlin moved into this cliff-side boathouse.
0:07:07 > 0:07:08Laugharne is a quirky place.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11Dylan called it this beguiling island of a town.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17Years ago, the whole community would meet up in the Brown's Hotel
0:07:17 > 0:07:20and it was like having a party every weekend.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23"'Dancing isn't natural!'
0:07:23 > 0:07:28"Righteously says Cherry Owen who has just downed 17 pints of flat,
0:07:28 > 0:07:30"warm, thin Welsh bitter beer."
0:07:33 > 0:07:36Laugharne locals are believed to have inspired
0:07:36 > 0:07:39some of the characters in Under Milk Wood.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43When Mr Thomas used to visit us here, he used to always tell me
0:07:43 > 0:07:48that he were writing a play and I would be in that play.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51I would ask him, "What is the premise of it?"
0:07:51 > 0:07:55"Oh, you wait and see."
0:07:55 > 0:07:57"'Oh, you cat butcher!'
0:07:57 > 0:08:00- "'Yesterday we had mole.' - 'Oh, Lily! Lily!'
0:08:00 > 0:08:03"'Monday, otter. Tuesday, shrews.'
0:08:03 > 0:08:08"'Go on, Mrs Beynon! He's the biggest liar in town.'"
0:08:09 > 0:08:14"And the inspectors of cruelty fly down to Mrs Butcher Beynon's dream
0:08:14 > 0:08:20"to persecute Mr Beynon for selling owl meat, dogs' eyes, man chop."
0:08:23 > 0:08:28He struggled to get the metres of the poetry just perfect.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31It's like a game, like a science, right?
0:08:32 > 0:08:37Most of his poetry he had to read out loud in that writing shed.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39It's the sound of the poetry.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42If you walked past there and he was still there today,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45you'd hear this crazy man repeating his poetry
0:08:45 > 0:08:47and getting it just right.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53"Only you can see in the blinded bedrooms, the combs
0:08:53 > 0:08:57"and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00"the glasses of teeth, 'Thou shalt not,' on the wall
0:09:00 > 0:09:05"and the yellowing dickie bird watching pictures of the dead."
0:09:05 > 0:09:09The musicality in his work is just astonishing.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14He was probably the world's first hip-hop artist, without knowing it himself.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20"'Help!" cries organ Morgan, the organist in his dream.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23"'There is perturbation in music and Coronation Street
0:09:23 > 0:09:26"'and the babies singing opera.'"
0:09:26 > 0:09:29Don't want to spoil it, so I don't want...
0:09:31 > 0:09:34"The cows from Sunday Meadow ring like reindeer
0:09:34 > 0:09:35"and on the roof of Handel Villa,
0:09:35 > 0:09:41"see the women's welfare hoofing, bloomered in the moon."
0:09:45 > 0:09:48"Hoofing bloomered in the moon."
0:09:51 > 0:09:56I'm sure if I listen to it again in a minute, I'd find another image.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01The more I read it, the more layers there are
0:10:01 > 0:10:04and there's extraordinary, kind of, innuendo.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12- Hello, Geoff.- 'Yes.' - How are you?- 'I'm good.'
0:10:12 > 0:10:15Jeff is Jeff Towns, a friend of Peter's
0:10:15 > 0:10:19and the ultimate Dylan Thomas know-it-all.
0:10:19 > 0:10:21Oh, how wonderful!
0:10:21 > 0:10:25The first ever LP of Under Milk Wood was that.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28Jeff has collected almost every edition and translation
0:10:28 > 0:10:31of Under Milk Wood since it was first published in 1954.
0:10:31 > 0:10:38It's been printed everywhere, so there are Danish and Yiddish...
0:10:38 > 0:10:42He has got a tattoo inspired by a Dylan Thomas poem.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46He lives in a house where Dylan Thomas used to stay
0:10:46 > 0:10:50and even drives across Wales in a mobile bookstore
0:10:50 > 0:10:52filled with books about Dylan Thomas.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58Under Milk Wood is set in a Welsh sounding town called Llareggub.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00If you spell it backwards, it's "bugger all."
0:11:02 > 0:11:06So, if you are researching sexual undertone in Under Milk Wood,
0:11:06 > 0:11:09Jeff should know where to look.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12I mean, obviously there's something going on when Nogood Boyo
0:11:12 > 0:11:17is out in the boat, there's kind of dreams and apparitions.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21Clearly there is a lot of sexual innuendo going on
0:11:21 > 0:11:27and I've picked up on a lot of it, but I wonder if you'd do me a favour
0:11:27 > 0:11:34and if you go through and find all the sexual innuendo you can.
0:11:34 > 0:11:40- It's an odd request, I know. - 'It's a wonderful challenge!'
0:11:40 > 0:11:44That I think is the very latest edition, a copy of it done
0:11:44 > 0:11:47for kids in school, but interestingly it's not been censored.
0:11:47 > 0:11:52It's still got all the innuendos that you would want to be in there,
0:11:52 > 0:11:55so it's a kids' edition with the full text.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59It's not pornographic, it's earthy.
0:11:59 > 0:12:02When you look at the text, and I have looked at it very hard
0:12:02 > 0:12:06and Peter has looked at it even harder, the innuendo
0:12:06 > 0:12:11and the double-entendre and the downright filth is on every page.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13"Tall as the town clock tower,
0:12:13 > 0:12:18"Samson-syrup-gold-maned, whacking thighed and piping hot.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22"'Ooh! You old mogul!'"
0:12:22 > 0:12:25He got away with blue murder, I think.
0:12:25 > 0:12:31"'Don't spank me, please, teacher!' whimpered his wife at his side.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34"But every night of her married life, she has been late for school."
0:12:34 > 0:12:37Obviously she was into a little bit of mild S&M
0:12:37 > 0:12:39and Pete has illustrated that and it's there in the text.
0:12:46 > 0:12:53"Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast and slow asleep."
0:12:57 > 0:13:01"In Butcher Beynon's, Gossamer Beynon, daughter, school teacher,
0:13:01 > 0:13:04"dreaming deep, daintily ferrets
0:13:04 > 0:13:06"under a fluttering hammock of chickens' feathers."
0:13:08 > 0:13:10"In a slaughterhouse that has chintz curtains
0:13:10 > 0:13:16"and a three-piece suite and finds, with no surprise, a small,
0:13:16 > 0:13:21"gruff, ready man with a bushy tail winking in the paper carrier."
0:13:21 > 0:13:23You are not even illustrating literature.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27You're illustrating the kind of barminess of poetry.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35"Time passes. Listen.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38"Time passes.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42"And the dawn inches up."
0:13:47 > 0:13:51Eventually, all the dreaming characters in Under Milk Wood
0:13:51 > 0:13:52wake up.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55The poem unfolds as one day in the life
0:13:55 > 0:13:58of a seemingly mad fishing village.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04The whole point about Dylan Thomas is this universal voice he has.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07Having travelled the world as a musician for all of my adult life,
0:14:07 > 0:14:09you go off any main route and find a small town,
0:14:09 > 0:14:12you're going to find mad places like Laugharne.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15By the late 1950s,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19the madness of Llareggub was already inspiring art students.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23When I was a student at the Royal College,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26some of the Welsh students did paintings about it.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28That's how I was introduced to it
0:14:28 > 0:14:31and then I became interested in it later on.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35As a young British artist in the 1960s,
0:14:35 > 0:14:39Peter Blake's pop imagery and collages defined a generation.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47# Substitute your lies for fact... #
0:14:47 > 0:14:50I can remember when I sat and wrote my first three or four songs
0:14:50 > 0:14:55for The Who, I had Peter's pictures cut out of books
0:14:55 > 0:14:59and magazines on my wall. That's what I wanted to live with,
0:14:59 > 0:15:03that was the image that I felt informed the way I wanted to write.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13I know there were chevrons on one of them.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16# ..I'm a substitute for another guy... #
0:15:16 > 0:15:21And I had a picture of a self-portrait, I think it was,
0:15:21 > 0:15:23of him with medals.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28# ..I look pretty young But I'm just back-dated, yeah... #
0:15:28 > 0:15:34With respect to Peter's work, I didn't think "album cover".
0:15:34 > 0:15:36What I thought was "clothing".
0:15:48 > 0:15:52In 1967, Peter was commissioned to design an album cover
0:15:52 > 0:15:54for The Beatles.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58It would turn out to be one of the most influential rock albums
0:15:58 > 0:16:02and one of the most memorable album covers in history.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06My main contribution was to make this kind of magical crowd.
0:16:06 > 0:16:11By using cut-outs and hand colouring them, the crowd could be anybody.
0:16:11 > 0:16:16So I asked all The Beatles to make a list of their heroes
0:16:16 > 0:16:18and I made a list of mine,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21and amongst John's list was Dylan Thomas.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27This kind of magical crowd,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30which is something I've used again and again.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34"Down with the waltzing and the skipping!"
0:16:34 > 0:16:37There are lots of crowd scenes in Under Milk Wood.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40"Dancing isn't natural!"
0:16:40 > 0:16:45At the dance is a crowd and emerging from the dead is a crowd.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48"Dancing Williams.
0:16:48 > 0:16:49"Still dancing.
0:16:49 > 0:16:54"Rosie, with God. She has forgotten dying..."
0:16:54 > 0:16:57One of Peter's artist friends from the '60s
0:16:57 > 0:17:01has dropped by his studio to see some of his newest artworks.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04Good to see you, mate. You find it all right?
0:17:04 > 0:17:06Everybody gets lost coming here.
0:17:06 > 0:17:09He also happens to moonlight as a guitar player
0:17:09 > 0:17:11for the Rolling Stones.
0:17:11 > 0:17:13It's like an organised version of my studio.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15Organised being the operative word.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19I just moved in here yesterday because I come in
0:17:19 > 0:17:21and work in here in the winter.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25- Is that Sonny Liston? - Yes.- I thought so.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28- I have a signed glove from him.- Do you?- Given to me by Muhammad Ali.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32Before a glimpse of some of Peter's Under Milk Wood artworks,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36Ronnie gets the Peter Blake studio museum tour.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41- These are two of the cut-outs from Sgt Pepper.- That's Maxie boy.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44That's a painter called Richard Lindner.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48It's nice to see another fellow artist mix in the musical world.
0:17:48 > 0:17:55He's not a musician himself, Peter, but he is very akin to a musician.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57So these are the unfinished ones.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01- They are the two old people who look like kippers in a box.- Flattened.
0:18:01 > 0:18:02"At the sea end of town,
0:18:02 > 0:18:07"Mr and Mrs Floyd, the cocklers, are sleeping as quiet as death,
0:18:07 > 0:18:11"side by wrinkled side, toothless, salt and brown,
0:18:11 > 0:18:14"like two old kippers in a box."
0:18:14 > 0:18:16- A wonderful challenge, innit? - Extraordinary.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19It must have been over at least 28 years or more.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Some of mine remain unfinished
0:18:22 > 0:18:25because I just can't get that last little bit in place
0:18:25 > 0:18:28and I think, "Well, I'm not going to get hung up over that."
0:18:28 > 0:18:31I carry on with the new one I've started, or
0:18:31 > 0:18:35I've got one in my head that I can't sleep over and then get up and do it,
0:18:35 > 0:18:41- and then go back to bed.- And then come back to it maybe a year later.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45This one is the dead coming out of the grave,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48so it's a bit like the Stanley Spencer resurrection.
0:18:48 > 0:18:53"Through the voyages of his tears, he sails to see the dead.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56"'Dancing Williams. Still dancing.'"
0:18:58 > 0:19:03There are people crying, people upset, there are people obviously
0:19:03 > 0:19:05having a great time when they died and they've just come
0:19:05 > 0:19:08out of the graves and carried on kind of dancing about.
0:19:08 > 0:19:13"The dead come out in their Sunday best.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16"Listen to the night breathing."
0:19:18 > 0:19:19It's very surreal.
0:19:19 > 0:19:24I think it's not too far removed from that kind of Wizard Of Oz,
0:19:24 > 0:19:26Alice in Wonderland...
0:19:27 > 0:19:29um...
0:19:29 > 0:19:34mood-altering chemicals and drugs and mushrooms and acid
0:19:34 > 0:19:39and alcohol-induced thoughts.
0:19:40 > 0:19:45That's the one, without any explanation, he says,
0:19:45 > 0:19:49"Be careful there, angels, with your knives and forks."
0:19:49 > 0:19:53"Wedding-ring waist and bust like a black-cloth dining table
0:19:53 > 0:19:55"suffers in her stays.
0:19:55 > 0:20:00"'Oh, angels, be careful there with your knives and forks.'"
0:20:00 > 0:20:03I think this is one of my kind of ruralist hippie garments
0:20:03 > 0:20:07that I now wear as a painting jacket rather than a shirt.
0:20:13 > 0:20:15The thing that will make it look like Dylan Thomas will be
0:20:15 > 0:20:19somewhere around the mouth. I'm not sure yet what it is,
0:20:19 > 0:20:24whether it's a shadow on that side or a little highlight of some kind
0:20:24 > 0:20:28on the lip, but right at the very end that happens and,
0:20:28 > 0:20:33hopefully, it's at that point that it really looks suddenly like him.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39Peter will never know what Dylan Thomas thinks about his artworks,
0:20:39 > 0:20:42but he is about to find out from Dylan's granddaughter Hannah
0:20:42 > 0:20:43what she thinks.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47- Hannah. How are you? Nice to meet you.- I'm so sorry.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50That's OK. Everybody gets lost.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53I like...the little bow tie there
0:20:53 > 0:20:57because it is giving it a little bit of character.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59A bit of detail, yes.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03You have caught the hair colour as well because...
0:21:03 > 0:21:06Just like a casting director for a film, Sir Peter has drawn
0:21:06 > 0:21:11portraits of every character who appears in Under Milk Wood.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16It's difficult because obviously you have an image of yourself.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19That's what's interesting, isn't it?
0:21:19 > 0:21:25- I'm assuming that's Polly Garter.- No. - Lily Smalls, maybe?- No.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28It's...
0:21:28 > 0:21:32The images Peter drew were his ideas of what the characters looked like,
0:21:32 > 0:21:37but I have a very different idea of what the characters look like.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41I'm going to look at which one is Captain Cat now.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44- That must be Captain Cat.- Yes.
0:21:44 > 0:21:50"I'll tell you the truth. Seas barking like seals,
0:21:50 > 0:21:57"blue seas and green, seas covered with eels and mermen and whales."
0:21:57 > 0:22:00"# What seas did you sail?
0:22:00 > 0:22:04"# Old whaler, when...? #
0:22:04 > 0:22:07"Lie down, lie easy.
0:22:07 > 0:22:12"Let me shipwreck in your thighs."
0:22:13 > 0:22:16He's not trying to disguise the fact that these are copies
0:22:16 > 0:22:20of photographs, because you can tell from the drawings that he has done
0:22:20 > 0:22:24that they are from photographs. They are real people.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27"Me, Lord Cut-Glass, in an old frock coat belonged to Eli Jenkins
0:22:27 > 0:22:31"and a pair of postman's trousers from Bethesda Jumble."
0:22:31 > 0:22:35Many of the portraits have anonymous origins, but not all.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38If you went through it as a game, you could find these elements.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43So one of the women is Terry Wogan for instance,
0:22:43 > 0:22:46so it's Terry Wogan's face but he is wearing a woman's hat.
0:22:47 > 0:22:52There is one character who has more than a passing resemblance
0:22:52 > 0:22:55to Humphrey Bogart.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58Another, Beryl Bainbridge.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01Captain Cat is wearing my beard.
0:23:01 > 0:23:03It's someone else's face and someone else's hat,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06it's just my beard, so that's kind of a self-portrait, I guess.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10Like when you look at a Rembrandt painting, he's got
0:23:10 > 0:23:12assistants playing the characters or somebody else.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15You never get a painting where somebody...
0:23:15 > 0:23:18Even Bacon, where you have these ugly, grotesque heads,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21he's still getting an image from a newspaper and putting it in there.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24It's collage and how do you create reality and believability.
0:23:24 > 0:23:30"A green leaved sermon on the innocence of men.
0:23:30 > 0:23:35"The suddenly wind-shaken wood springs awake
0:23:35 > 0:23:38"for the second dark time.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41"This one spring day."
0:23:41 > 0:23:45In all those collages, there's a kind of place
0:23:45 > 0:23:48and then are things and then there are people and they are
0:23:48 > 0:23:51in a kind of between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53They're not flat. I mean, they are flat.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56If you turn them that way, it's a line of paper
0:23:56 > 0:23:58and they are made from paper, a lot of them.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01But I think he touches on the real world and the dream world
0:24:01 > 0:24:03and he kind of links the two.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09Under Milk Wood was never completed.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11I don't think Under Milk Wood would ever have been completed
0:24:11 > 0:24:15because my grandfather would have kept wanting to add things
0:24:15 > 0:24:18and improve it, and any good writer will want to look back
0:24:18 > 0:24:20years later and think, "I could have done better,"
0:24:20 > 0:24:22and I suspect the same is with Peter.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26With Hannah in his studio, Peter's curiosity about the death
0:24:26 > 0:24:29of her grandfather got the better of him.
0:24:29 > 0:24:31The pressure of people, you know...
0:24:31 > 0:24:33I think there was an awful lot of pressure.
0:24:33 > 0:24:39He was in New York and he had a tour with vast amounts of reading
0:24:39 > 0:24:42and work to be done and he still hadn't finished Under Milk Wood
0:24:42 > 0:24:44- and it was due to go on. - Thirty-something?
0:24:44 > 0:24:4739, just a few years older than me, which is very strange.
0:24:47 > 0:24:52- I should know this, but was he ill? - Yes, he had...
0:24:52 > 0:24:57He had terrible bronchial pneumonia and I don't think he was eating.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00He was drinking more than he should do.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03People assume he died of drink, don't they?
0:25:03 > 0:25:07I think he didn't die of alcohol poisoning. Probably the fact he was
0:25:07 > 0:25:11drinking more and drinking whisky rather than beer and not eating.
0:25:11 > 0:25:17There was a doctor who gave him morphine, which was helping him
0:25:17 > 0:25:18get through really,
0:25:18 > 0:25:22but the injection had the impact of slowing his breathing,
0:25:22 > 0:25:27which then had the impact of having less oxygen going to his brain.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30- He was in hospital by then? - No, this was before.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33So, basically, the oxygen didn't go to his brain
0:25:33 > 0:25:38and many, many things happened. It was a tragedy really.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Death is one of the many themes that permeate the quirky
0:25:46 > 0:25:50and eccentric town of Llareggub.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53"Less than 500 souls inhabit the three quaint streets
0:25:53 > 0:25:56"and the few narrow bylanes and scattered farmsteads that
0:25:56 > 0:26:00"constitute this small, decaying watering place,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04"which may indeed be called a bad water of life without
0:26:04 > 0:26:06"disrespect to its natives who possess, to this day,
0:26:06 > 0:26:10"a salty individuality of their own.
0:26:10 > 0:26:15"The River Dewi is said to abound in trout, but is much poached.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19"The one place of worship, with its neglected graveyard,
0:26:19 > 0:26:21"is of no architectural interest."
0:26:23 > 0:26:28The people that were in Under Milk Wood and in his poetry,
0:26:28 > 0:26:30they are still around today. You just have to look.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44Different to my Captain Cat, but very good.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48Underneath all this is me. It is actually my body.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51John Bradshaw, the mayor of Laugharne, may be the only
0:26:51 > 0:26:56person in the world to model for and perform the part of elderly
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Captain Cat and to also have once played a child character in Under Milk Wood.
0:27:02 > 0:27:07I was in the first live performance done in Laugharne in 1958.
0:27:07 > 0:27:09- As a child?- As a child, yes.
0:27:09 > 0:27:15But someone like Captain Cat would have been a professional seafarer
0:27:15 > 0:27:16in the merchant Navy presumably.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19Laugharne was certainly full of those.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22There were lots of retired sea captains living in the main street.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25- Oh, really? - The big Georgian houses.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28I think it was a place that people retired to.
0:27:30 > 0:27:35"From where you are, you can hear their dreams.
0:27:35 > 0:27:40"Steaming Gossamer and strip her to the nipples and the bees."
0:27:42 > 0:27:46It's a long time for Peter to be working on this project.
0:27:46 > 0:27:50It's a good obsession. There are a lot worse obsessions to have.
0:27:52 > 0:27:56Obsessions and deadlines don't always get along,
0:27:56 > 0:27:59but for the museum exhibition of his Under Milk Wood artworks,
0:27:59 > 0:28:01Sir Peter has delivered.
0:28:03 > 0:28:06Peter said that he never finishes anything.
0:28:06 > 0:28:07I don't think I allowed myself
0:28:07 > 0:28:10to think that he wouldn't meet the deadline.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13People would think of me as a pop artist,
0:28:13 > 0:28:16someone who does record covers.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19I think what has been particularly exciting
0:28:19 > 0:28:21is that it has surprised people.
0:28:28 > 0:28:33He's done Under Milk Wood and done it credit.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36We've waited too long, too long.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41I've got a feeling my grandfather has been here tonight.
0:28:41 > 0:28:45Suddenly, just before the big kick-off of the event,
0:28:45 > 0:28:49it went black. All the lights went down and I think my grandfather
0:28:49 > 0:28:52was playing a little trick there, playing around.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58I've taken on the impossible in a way and done the best I can with it.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd