I would like to think that ace British TV writer Andrew Davies as a child caught Dylan Thomas on one of his speaking tours, where in his day he was introduced as one of the best readers of poetry as he was the greatest living poet.
But no, Davies, even at 77, is a little too young for that. He told me he was in grade six by the time Thomas died of drink in 1953 at the age of 39. But there was a childhood connection, he said in the TV Critics summer press tour panel for the resulting film “A Poet in New York,” that stars Tom Hollander as the dissipating poet, that will debut this fall on BBC America.
” I first came across him at a verse speaking competition,” Davies said. “I had to learn and speak a Dylan Thomas poem called The Hand That Signed the Paper. And that led me to want to read more of him. And I found that his background was very similar to mine, and I had dreams that rather than ambitions of becoming a writer.
“And I was greatly encouraged to find out that he’d had a boyhood very much the same as mine. His father’s a teacher, growing up in the suburbs, just having quite quite ordinary experiences, but kind of joyful and terrifying ones. And I thought, yeah, well, I could do that as well,” he said. “And I wanted to drink quite a bit.And have women and so on, but try not to actually drink myself to death. And I’ve done a lot better than he did in that respect so far.”
Indeed, he’s gotten accolades and awards for his work in writing TV adaptations of “Bleak House,” “Little Dorrit,” “Middlemarch” “Sense and Sensibility” and the original British version of “House of Cards.”
He just finished adapting “War & Peace” into a six-hour adaptation for 2015 that is just now being cast.
But he clearly has a place in his heart for Thomas.
“I’d never actually visited [the point’s home in] Laugharne, so it was great to go and see it with writing this piece in mind. And it’s all still there, more or less, exactly how as it was,” he said. “You can go and drink in the same pub, Brown’s Hotel where he used to drink.
“So, yeah, I did all that. And I went to New York and went to the Chelsea Hotel and the White Horse Tavern. And I went and had a look at the hospital where he died, and went to one or two other bars that he used to frequent and kind of got into that vibe as much as possible. There’s such contrast. I mean it’s like the Chelsea Hotel and the White Horse Tavern look so rundown and seedy now. And the Welsh scenes look extraordinarily beautiful and peaceful. He had such stark contrasts in his life between the two.”
Hollander, known for his starring role in “Rev” gained nearly 30 pounds to play Thomas. Though problems with flights kept him from being in Beverly Hills, he not only spoke to critics via satellite from London, but he also read, in the rich voice he developed in portraying Thomas, a just-discovered Dylan Thomas 1951 drinking poem, “Song,” in what he said was a U.S. debut.