Episode 2 Ugly Lovely Swansea: A Poet On the Estate

"Do not go gentle into that good night."

I think he's dead. He's buried.

And should be left alone to lie in peace.

Dylan Thomas. World famous Welsh poet, playwright

and legendary bon viveur would have been 100 years old this year.

But so what?

Who actually cares about celebrating the long gone life of another

dead white poet?

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Well, this living, breathing, celebrated black poet does.

I've always thought of him as the Bob Marley of Wales.

Benjamin Zephaniah has come to Swansea, the ugly lovely town

of Dylan Thomas's birth, on a mission improbable.

I think Dylan Thomas has been hijacked

and I want to give him back to the people.

And after a few false starts...

Dylan Thomas.

Dylan Thomas, what are you on about? It's not looking good.

..Benjamin pitched up in Townhill, one of Swansea's toughest states...

It was the joyriding capital of Britain.

..where his dream is to help the people of Townhill

find their inner poets.

To begin near the beginning.

In a house not right in the head.

And then write and perform their own 21st-century Under Milk Wood.

Poets, all of you, we'll sing on our own.

But with just one month to get their work from the page to the stage...

I sense that you have it in you.

Well...

A boob job off the NHS.

..can Benjamin get them dancing to his tune?

Or come the big night...

Lovely, ugly.

Will they be stepping on each other's toes?

Let's go nail this then, eh? Let's nail it to the fence.

The Townhill estate in ugly lovely Swansea.

It's the morning after a night before that will go

down in local legend.

It was the night world famous poet Benjamin Zephaniah wowed

a packed West End social club more used to bingo and drag artists

with the poetry of Dylan Thomas.

Rage.

Against the dying of the light.

And then followed it up with unusual

but productive auditions for the people of Townhill.

Be nice to your turkeys this Christmas

because turkeys just want to have fun.

The aim, for Benjamin and his team to find enough locals willing

to try and write their own 21st- century version of Under Milk Wood.

And then maybe to perform it on stage.

SHE RAPS: Home comes Dorian, knapsack on his back.

Hiya, Mam, dirty grundies in my sack!

I know it so well.

With well over 50 people turning up to last night's auditions,

Benjamin has plenty of raw talent to work with but before his fresh

recruits even think of picking up their own pens, he wants them to try

and get to know, love and understand the work of Dylan Thomas himself.

No easy task.

A lot of people do think that poetry is pretentious, that it's

only written by middle-class people for middle-class people.

But I've always loved Dylan Thomas's work.

Ever since it was introduced to me.

My thing coming here was to kind of get other people to love his work.

But with such a diverse and colourful cast of people to try

and get engaged with Dylan Thomas and his poetry

where does Benjamin begin?

Well, he decides to start with the last person you'd expect

to read any poetry, Christopher Dolphin, AKA, Dolly.

The rough diamond plasterer who made a big impression the night before.

Thank you, Benjamin. Absolute legend. Awesome poetry.

He was a poet and he didn't know it! What a nice guy!

Benjamin reckons Dolly might also be a poet who doesn't know it.

But is he right? What a nice guy.

Townhill born and bred, Dolly went to the estate's Dylan Thomas

community school but learnt very little about Dylan.

Or anything else.

School life was a battle for me.

I was always late and I was joking,

never took any teachers serious.

The clown of the class.

I didn't like school, like.

Leaving at 15 with no qualifications,

Dolly took up plastering, not poetry.

But on site there's no doubting his natural gift of the gab.

I had an interview with the social, they tried to stop my incapacity benefit. Can you believe that?

Quite a funny guy, as it happens. Never dull moment with him.

Well said, Grim Boy! Well said! Good effort. Valiant effort.

I'm a very vocal person.

I don't hold back, like.

Coming to work, eff and blind, shout, scream, spill water, get dirty.

Bang your elbow, cut your head, spitting and cursing

and effing and jeffing.

Raaaaar!

Living the dream, bro. Absolutely living the dream.

I've been told, like, I've got a way with words.

I never really paid much attention. I am what I am, like. You know?

Look at my job.

All I do every single day of my working life is look at a wall.

How repetitive is that? Just looking at a wall. Every single day, walls.

I've got up in front of the boys in a pub,

and "roar", and a banter,

and perhaps that could be a form of poetry.

# Uncle, Uncle Keith, Uncle Keith Super Uncle Keith... #

With regards of...being a...

A poet, really? I don't know, like.

Mate, you've gone to the dogs. Absolute embarrassment.

Oh, my sister's cat!

Perhaps I do put myself down, I haven't got enough confidence

with regards of other aspects of life and whatever.

Confidence of pulling women, I couldn't pull a muscle. I'm poor.

A bit of a train crash. Ah...

Dolly might think himself a wreck

but Benjamin hears poetry in his soul

and challenges Dolly to visit Townhill Library

and take out some Dylan Thomas.

For Dolly, a journey into the unknown.

Good afternoon, lovely. Have you got anything about Dylan Thomas?

We've got collect poems by him

and sort of his life as well.

We've also got this one, A Child's Christmas In Wales.

That's one of his most famous ones. Is it? Yes.

I'm a bit of a Dylan Thomas virgin,

to be quite honest with you, on reading up on his literature and any of his work.

There is a lot of Dylan Thomas.

These are due back now in three weeks. There we are. Lovely job.

Fabulous. Cheers.

"A stranger has come to share my room in the house not right in the head."

If my mates knew I had a day off, I went to the library,

"Can I have four books on Dylan Thomas, please?" Nice one, mate, cheers.

I'll sit in my van and start reciting Dylan Thomas.

Are you serious? Are you serious?

Yet she deludes with the walking nightmarish room

At large as the dead

Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.

It's got to be about a bird. Some crazy-assed woman, no doubt.

It's a good read. It is a good read.

Bottom line, I think Dylan Thomas is a bit of a legend.

I was intrigued by the story when he first went to the States,

and he went to an Hollywood party, Marilyn Monroe was there.

And obviously he got... Had a few drinks, what have you.

Straight onto the prettiest girl, typical Swansea boy,

could even say he was from Townhill. That's one of us.

Lo and behold then,

gets kicked out of the party for allegedly peeing in a plant pot.

Legend. Absolutely total legend. Can't fault him. Brilliant.

There's a bit of Dylan Thomas in us all, I think.

There's definitely a bit in me, without a shadow of a doubt.

Whilst Dolly found an immediate connection with Dylan,

a quick trip to the library isn't going to work for all of Benjamin's

cast, which is why Benjamin's next challenge is very different.

Dolly's best friend Paul Simpson is more a pugilist than a poet.

Far more comfortable throwing hooks than reading books.

And when Paul turned up at the auditions,

he also told Benjamin about a condition

he thought would prevent him from being part of the project.

I'm dyslexic. I can read but I can't spell stuff I can read.

Don't let dyslexia hold you back. I'm a poet. Yeah.

I'm a professor of literature

and I'm very dyslexic. It's weird, innit?

Let me tell you, brother.

Dyslexia has nothing to do with your ideas or

the level of your intelligence. Don't let that hold you back.

I don't think I was very good at school

because obviously I had a problem with reading and writing

and it made it hard for me and I just got frustrated with it

and then I let myself slip and I messed around quite a lot,

I had a warning, I had a warning and then they kicked me out of school.

No other school would take me.

Paul and Benjamin don't just have dyslexia in common.

Benjamin is also a keen amateur boxer,

and to help Paul with his lack of confidence when it comes to the

written word, he prescribes a technique he often uses himself.

He's going to introduce Paul to Dylan Thomas's poems through an iPod.

"For my sake sail and never look back, said the looking land.

"Sails drank the wind and white as milk

"He sped into the drinking dark."

It's easier to remember something you've heard than to remember

something you've read. I know it sounds stupid.

And putting pen to paper made me...

Bits of poetry out of this I could probably put into my own words.

"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

"About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green..."

By happy coincidence,

Paul, a scaffolder, is working in Laugharne.

And takes the opportunity to visit the boathouse where Dylan

wrote many of his most famous works.

Yeah, it's nice. And as it goes, you've got a lovely view.

What more does a man want when he's doing his poetry, innit?

I could see myself sitting here and chilling and maybe drawing.

Definitely.

Paul also visits Dylan's grave.

"In memory of Dylan Thomas, born October 27th, 1914.

"Died November 9th, 1953."

Dylan's early death touches home with Paul.

It's a waste, innit, when you think about what he's done

and what he's touched and what he's left behind.

I know what it's like to lose people

and at a very young age.

I've lost a mate, 15, another mate 16, 17

and then another mate, he was about 20 when he died.

Some of them died not their fault. Some of them died their faults.

It's just a cruel world we live in.

They take the good and leave us with all the bad.

That's the way I look at it, anyway.

Benjamin's next challenge is how does he get 26-year-old

mother-of-five Charlene Brookes to engage with Dylan?

Charlene had really impressed Benjamin at the auditions

with her alarmingly frank honesty and humour.

I got sterilised the same time as he come out.

I had a Caesarean, as he come out I got sterilised the same time. No more.

Definitely no more. Definitely.

Charlene strikes Benjamin as being a character

straight off the pages of Under Milk Wood.

But she knows nothing of Dylan and cares even less,

as during her time at the local Dylan Thomas school,

she wasn't exactly teacher's pet.

I was really bad behaved in school, believe it or not.

You were a naughty girl? Yeah, I was the worst pupil, probably.

But I still left with ten GCSEs. Yeah, it sort of all went in.

I can't remember myself listening but it sort of went in somewhere.

It must of. It must of.

Can I just ask you, how old were you when you had first child? 18.

18? Yeah. I had two in one year.

My oldest two, there's only ten weeks between them.

I had them really close together.

They stay the same age for a month every year.

You come over as a very positive, optimistic person.

But it must've been tough at some times.

Of course. It was tough from the beginning. Right from the beginning.

Nobody knows what's going to happen,

nobody knows which way life's going to turn out.

People make mistakes so you've got to overcome, haven't you?

I think you would be good at reading poetry and performing poetry

because you've got the character.

I'd give it a go. I'd give anything a go.

Why not? Everybody lives once.

Go, go, go! Louise, I'm going to fall.

One thing that might convince Charlene that Benjamin's

project could really happen is that Townhill is

a lot like Llaregub - the fictional community in Under Milk Wood.

Everyone lives in each other's pockets

and everyone knows everyone else's business.

People round here, if they gotta know something about you,

they've gotta know something about you.

I learned stuff about myself I didn't even know before!

You know what I mean?!

By the time something gets back to you, I didn't know that about myself.

So, Benjamin has encouraged Charlene to take

the words of Dylan into her everyday life -

including the project where she does voluntary work.

To begin near the beginning. And so on.

"What limping invisible down the sloeback, slow, black, crowblack fishing-boat bobbing sea."

I didn't make sense of that...did I? Yeah.

Aw, imagine reading a full book of that.

You'd confuse yourself, wouldn't you?

When I first heard about poetry, me doing poetry...

I said I thought I'd give it a go but it's good now. It's really good.

For all the young mums, scaffolders and plasterers that Benjamin is keen to pull into his project,

there's one extraordinary character he cannot wait to see again.

The one that I haven't stopped thinking about is

the 82-year-old granny. To me, she was amazing.

SHE RAPS: All you mums out there, darling little Billy

Things get to change when they get an act willy.

LAUGHTER

Rapping granny Josephine Phillips grew up in Swansea

when Dylan was writing his most famous piece.

Under Milk Wood is full of lots of characters. So real.

It's so real! Do you recognise some of those characters?

I do recognise quite a few of the characters there. Yes, I really do.

The minister, Eli Jenkins' Prayer.

I recognise him. I spent all my life in church.

And can you recite some of Eli Jenkins' Prayer? Yes.

"Every morning, when I wake, Dear Lord, a little prayer I make

"Please to keep your lovely eye on all poor creatures born to die

"And to the sun we now will bow and say goodbye but just for now."

Beautiful.

And as you said that, somebody scored a goal!

Talk of Thomas also prompts fond memories of Josephine's youth.

Josephine, to me these just look like a block of flats

but to you this was a very special place a long time ago. It really was.

It was the Townhill ballroom,

and this was where I spent many, many happy hours

dancing - ballroom dancing.

And the music started, and we started to dance,

you were in a different world.

I've got it. You're a great teacher, you know?

Amazing. Yeah.

Now sing to me, sing to me, sing to me!

# Who's taking you home tonight

# After the dance is through?

# Who's going to hold you tight

# And whisper, I love you, I do?

Oh, my goodness!

OK? Not only was I taught how to dance

but I was serenaded!

Benjamin has now spent a week on Townhill inspiring the community

to engage with Dylan Thomas and getting to know them as individuals.

And he's encouraged by what he's seen.

All the people I've met seem to be genuine people.

I never get the feeling that any of them are faking,

acting up for me or the cameras or anything like that.

When Benjamin first arrived, his aim was to get Townhill

writing their own 21st-century Under Milk Wood.

But does he really think Townhill is up to the task?

There's possibilities here.

When you start to write, what is your research? It's yourself.

Your research is your neighbours. That is your raw material.

Your raw material is your life and you want it as raw as it can be.

'We all have a story to tell,

'and interestingly enough,

'the people who live on estates, the people who have suffered,

'the people who have had broken marriages and broken relationships

'and run-ins with the law,'

those are the people that make interesting stories.

Those are the people that the educated people have to research

and study to make their stories to put on television.

Now that Benjamin knows he's got such people on board,

he's ready to take his raw recruits to the next phase of the plan -

putting pen to paper.

He's organised a writing workshop

for some of his most enthusiastic volunteers within the hallowed walls

of Swansea's Dylan Thomas Centre.

Thank you, everybody, for coming.

Benjamin is going to use

Dylan's most famous poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,

to try and fan their creative flames.

"And you, my father, there on the sad height

"Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

"Do not go gentle into that good night.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

This last paragraph, it catches me even hearing it.

My father was on the sad height.

He was on a platform before they took him into the crem

and when I hear that... I see.

..you know, it kind of just...

It's amazing what words can do.

Yeah. Like, I'm not sad, like, it's just emotional.

And we use words every day

and sometimes we just let them go past us.

That's the great thing about a poet, he just takes his words...

There's no big fancy words here, really. No.

We're just looking at the order of them. Yeah.

And they're having an effect on us. It's amazing, innit?

Yeah, it's amazing.

Strong, like. It's powerful, like, you know? Very, very powerful.

And with the power of Thomas to inspire them,

Benjamin encourages everyone

to pour moments from their own lives onto the page.

Julia in particular relishes the challenge.

This is, like, a proper emosh day, this.

It's, like, really interesting,

taking apart something and trying to write something totally different

but with all that sort of playing around in your head.

I'm just thrilled to have the opportunity to sit down and write

and I've never done anything like this before.

This is like going back to school but in the best sense.

This is like going back to school on a day you wanted to go to school,

without the fags and dinner tickets.

LAUGHTER

And this is, like, the best day for, like, ages.

"No discriminations, seduction and soothing

"Why can't you see her for the devil she is?

"No discriminations, seduction and soothing

"She was your master, she was your queen."

Oh, my God!

OK. Mine's called Hiraeth. It's a Welsh word, it means longing.

It's about Nai, who's my grandson.

"I think of you, Nai, each day. I came to you, Nai, at birth.

"I hope for you, Nai, the best."

"Your words as accurate as bile.

"A smile cantankerous as a vacuum of unfulfilment.

"A sneer, a masquerade."

"The cwtching and holding we should have done

"Was left to others in that cold hospital room."

"I wish for you, Nai, with me.

"I'm proud of you, Nai, in Wales.

"I long to cwtch you, Nai, today."

"I am here, I am there. Sometimes it seems I don't care.

"But I come from a place where the grass is green.

"It's the greenest grass you will ever see.

"I will not tell you lies but I can tell you many tales

"because I am an honest bad boy plasterer from South Wales.

"And I assure you that I will not, without a doubt,

"go gentle into that good night,

"and I will, for sure, rage, rage against the dying of the light."

That's like perfection! Wonderful.

You are clever. Pfft!

I wouldn't go that far! Thick as pea soup. Um...

Brilliant. It is what it is, sort of thing, you know?

Do you write poetry normally, Dol?

No, not at all, absolutely never ever.

How many poems have you written? One. Yay!

That doesn't read like a first poem.

It almost doesn't even read like a first draft. Well...

That's the truth. I'm not just saying that because I like you.

It is the truth. You know, it is what it is. It is what it is!

I don't know which other way you want to sort of dress up

or put fluffy cushions round it. It is what it is

and, you know, it's... Brilliant.

And thank you, guys.

Benjamin is so impressed by Dolly's first ever poem

that he asks him to meet him at Dylan Thomas's house

in Cwmdonkin Drive. Here we are.

Benjamin wants to say something that will, unbelievably,

leave Dolly almost lost for words.

I'm telling you, right, I'm a well-travelled person

and I want to hear what you have to say about your life here,

and I'm not trying to sound grand or trying to show off

or trying to big you up.

I sense that you have it in you. Really? Really.

I think you have it in you, and I don't say that to everybody.

Because everybody has a story in them. Course they do.

But a lot of people, you don't want to hear it. I want to hear yours.

Well, that's...

Get an agent, man, get an agent. Mate, that's overwhelming.

Seriously. It's overwhelming.

Take the time to think about it.

You should try writing a few poems, getting on stage and saying them.

They have open mic nights and stuff like that.

Maybe keeping a diary, saying what it's like at work - whatever it is.

Yeah. So, you know,

there's some times your children would be thinking...

I'm presuming that you have children. Yeah, yeah.

Your children would be thinking, "What is my dad thinking now?"

Later on they may read a bit of your poetry and go,

"Wow! That's what he was thinking." Do you know what?

That's a good shout, you know?

Yeah. Obviously I'm going through a bit of a mission with...

I have got a little boy, we've split, I've split up, sort of thing.

So there's a bit of an issue of

seeing him more than I want to and stuff.

It rips you up. It's terrible.

But like you say,

I have penned a couple of letters for him to say, you know...

Write poems for him.

He may turn around one day and say, "Daddy, where were you when...this?"

and you can show him a poem and say... "That's where I was, look."

It could be a place physically, could be a place emotionally.

Could be anything.

Don't be afraid to get in touch with yourself, you know?

Oh, man, that's... I can't...

Honest to God, it's incredible. That's the way it is.

Dolly - there's something about him which I think is yet to come out

and I think it'll come out once he starts writing more and thinking.

Once you start to think about what you're going to write,

then you tend to write thoughtfully.

Sounds like I'm going round and round there,

but that's what poets do - poets talk to themselves through the pen.

And talking through their pens

is exactly what Benjamin needs his Townhill poets to do next.

So with help from his team,

he sets about encouraging the community to talk about incidents

and characters from their own lives.

It's "Town'ill". It's not "Town-hill!"

And the pens and the processors are soon working overtime.

And a Dylanesque portrait of life on "Town'ill" begins to emerge.

Hiya. Right. This is our national park.

Their own Llaregub, their own 21st-century Under Milk Wood.

I wondered if it rained this much when Dylan Thomas was here.

It was always raining in his heart, love.

And as the stories emerge,

Benjamin realises that Townhill and Llaregub are so alike,

he should encourage everyone to write modern takes on original

Under Milk Wood scenes - scenes such as the gossiping neighbours.

Poor Mrs Waldo. What she puts up with. Never should have married!

If she didn't have to! Same as her mother. There's a husband for you.

Bad as his father. Carrying on. With that Mrs Beattie Morris.

Up in the quarry. And seen her baby?! It's got his nose!

Oh, what will the neighbours say?

Now, surely there's enough juicy gossip swirling around Townhill

for someone to come up with a modern take on that original scene.

Everybody knows everybody. Everybody know everybody business?

Everybody know how g'wan? Yeah!

There's always somebody

chatting over the fence to somebody else about somebody else.

It's part of life, gossiping.

A bit of, "Have you seen her there? Did you hear about that?"

No malice intended at all.

Without naming names...

I can't cos it's on camera, I can't! Right!

Bra stuffed with socks...

Benjamin challenges Charlene, Sharon and Amaryllis

to sit in the church hall

and write their own gossiping neighbours' scene - Townhill style.

A boob job off the NHS... Yeah.

Sleeping with all the married men in the village. There you are.

Other things you could accuse her of? And the funnier this is, the better.

Being pregnant and having chlamydia.

THEY LAUGH

Together.

Having crabs? Giving crabs to the man?

This isn't going to work, Charlene.

Having diseases? More STDs than GCSEs.

I think you should not go any further!

But once the libellous bits have been removed,

and they've been joined by Julia,

they write a scene set in Townhill's hairdresser's that is a scream.

I saw La-Di-Da Jenny talking to her the other day.

ALL: Bloody do-gooder.

Oh, don't get me started now, right, faker than a Chanel bag from Turkey.

Fake everything! Fake nails.

Hair. Boobs. Tan.

Car. Finance.

ALL: Giving it the big one.

Obviously it's about completely fictional people.

She's got massive feet! Aye, she wears an eight

but if she cut them toenails, she'd be a size six.

'It's just, I don't know,'

being a bit nosy and observing what's going on around you.

Benjamin's successful challenge to the gossip girls

galvanises the whole group,

and soon, in small pockets all across Townhill,

similar Under Milk Wood-inspired scenes are starting to take shape.

Myfanwy Price! Mr Mog Edwards!

I am a draper mad with love!

In the nave of the local church,

the unfulfilled love letters of Mog Edwards and Myfanwy Price

inspire Vicky and Phill to write a modern-day virtual equivalent.

Miss Francis Broadsheet,

I am your sweet paperman.

Can I be your Western Mail?

Mr Roger Baker, I will bake you a batch of bara brith

and whip your meringue into stiff peaks.

I will knead you like you've never been kneaded before.

That's, uh...a bit erotic!

LAUGHTER

I wasn't expecting that at all! Well, in a place of worship.

Down the West End Social Club, Dolly and Paul's attempts

to come up with a scene about the dignity of manual labour

have descended into a bickering match over the artistic merits

of Dolly's plastering. It's just a wall, mate.

I've got to give that wall a life, mate. I've got to give it a life.

I've got to bring it in. That wall's going to be painted.

That wall's going to have a family portrait on it. Bugger off!

You can't say that!

Still, Nikki and Michael write down their rough poetic gems

to add to the expanding script.

As it goes, you are a star of it. Your prices are way, way up there.

Now, me, a little four-by-four wall, "Come and plaster this for me."

"Yeah, ?200." "?200?! I'll do it myself! No chance."

You crack on and do it yourself

and hang your clothes from that wall now nice and tidy, right?

After two more weeks of graft and craft,

and burning of the church hall candles, the Townhill team

are beginning to stand their 21st- century Under Milk Wood on its feet.

Pfft! Gangs of three. Don't be a bladder.

Nails. Hair. Boobs. Tan.

COUNTDOWN STYLE: Do-do, do-do, do-do-do, boom!

Eight whole scenes have been scripted, all of them rich...

..comic, and completely Dylan Thomas.

I will melt your cheese and watch my rarebit bubble...

But Benjamin senses that

there's one key Dylan element missing from the mix - poignancy.

Ach y fi! Ach y fi!

Under Milk Wood is a comic masterpiece,

but it's also laced with everyday heartaches, longings and loss.

"Rosie Probert, 33 Duck Lane.

"Come on up, boys. I'm dead."

"Oh, my dead dear."

# But I always think as we tumble into bed

# Of little Willy Wee who is dead, dead, dead. #

"Oh, isn't life a terrible thing?

"Thank God."

Whilst Benjamin has found plenty of poignancy on the real-life Townhill,

it's an emotion currently missing from his emerging play.

But he believes there is an answer

and that it lies with 81-year-old Josephine.

He's hoping her tales of lost love,

music and dancing in Townhill's long-gone Tower Ballroom

will give the show its missing poignancy.

1950s BALLROOM MUSIC

There were the clothes I wore when I used to go ballroom dancing.

If you wanted to look nice, then you either saved your money up

or you borrowed it from somebody in the house and you paid them back

at so much a week out of your wages.

When you'd done that, then you'd borrow a little bit more,

buy another outfit.

Benjamin has a vision of the whole cast waltzing -

something that would have been second nature to Dylan's generation.

And Josephine's recollections of such times on Townhill hold the key.

Once the music started, everything would be beautiful.

All the girls in their beautiful dresses.

Beautiful, beautiful memories. Everything was lovely.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

SHE SINGS ALONG: # We used to walk in the shade... #

'There were plenty of chances at Tower Ballroom'

but I won't let the cat out of the bag.

A lady doesn't do that sort of thing!

But that's precisely what Benjamin's hoping Josephine will do -

let her Captain Cat out of the bag.

There is Captain Cat, looking all wistful,

looking out to sea.

"You cosy love, my easy as easy, my true sweetheart..."

In the most moving scene in Under Milk Wood,

blind old seaman Captain Cat laments his lost youth, and his lost loves.

"Knock twice, Jack, at the door of my grave

"and ask for Rosie. Rosie Probert.

"Look! Captain Cat is crying!

"Captain Cat is crying.

"Come back! Come back!"

Benjamin's hoping that an equally moving scene can be written

about Josephine's dancing days and partners of 60 years ago.

What I used to love,

at the end of the night it was called the Twilight Waltz. Right.

And it was a song called Who's Taking You Home Tonight,

and if somebody was lucky, somebody would be taking them home.

And so Josephine works with writers Michael and Zoe to create a scene

that uses words, music and dance.

Well, I know where I am now, so that's fine!

But Benjamin's hopes for a poignant and moving piece

must first face some interesting Townhill choreography.

Going to move on to what we've called the Ballroom Section,

which is based on Josephine's wonderful stories

about Tower Ballroom, and also it does require as a company

for you to waltz. So those of you who can waltz, brilliant.

Those of you who can't... We're going to try. ..it's time to learn.

I can waltz with the best of them. I bet you can, Dol.

So I'm going to go one, two,

and the gent is going to do half a turn on our three.

THEY LAUGH

I'm going to have to do as the man tells me.

Do as the man tells you! Right.

An absolutely lovely waltz.

And now we're talking!

This is crazy stuff.

'I used to be awesome at waltzing.'

I've just gone to the dogs all of a sudden. I mean, you know...

OK. We're going to have plan B.

Oh, plan B sounds good! Ladies and gents, I think we might need plan B.

Go back to the script, OK?

Set the script that will go into this section

and then we'll work out the best way of doing the waltzy bit. OK?

The "waltzy bit" remains an artistic work in progress,

as does much of the rest of Benjamin's ambitious epic.

And with less than a week before show time, could it be

that Benjamin and the Townhill team have simply been too ambitious?

Well, Benjamin remains optimistic.

I think the only thing that could go wrong really

is just on-the-night nerves.

It's just that it kind of all falls apart on the night

and then the other thing is something domestic coming up

and somebody can't make it or something like that.

I guess that's a big worry.

I'm really proud of them, seeing what they've done so far,

but I wouldn't tell them that yet until it's finished.

Never! But will it really be all right on the night?

As next time, it's far from a full house for the final rehearsal.

There's about eight missing at the moment so we can't even start it.

In terms of stress levels, from one to ten, how are you? 12!

Tensions in the team are rising.

Charlene, you need to build a bridge and get over it. Sort yourself out.

BLEEPED

But there's no backing out now.

Here we go.

# Poets on the Hill! We'll sing on our own! #

And as the sell-out audience arrive... It's full, innit?

..nerves are jangling. I'm nervous as hell.

It's worse than going into a boxing ring and fighting.

Relax. Take a deep breath.

And mission improbable is about to launch!

The Poets On The Hill performance of Lovely Ugly!

APPLAUSE