I’d looked forward with great enthusiasm to Nick Dear’s new play at the Almeida, and the reviews were good and I wanted to love it, and part of me did. But maybe not surprrisingly it tried too hard to be a play and the play became disconnected from the reality.

Why should I be closer to the reality than Nick Dear? I can only claim reading Matthew Hollis’s wonderful biography, my own reading of Thomas’s poems and writings, and two long contemplative walks this summer that took me from Selborne to Steep, following the paths he would have walked, and from Steep church up through the village to Shoulder of Mutton hill, and back down again… I walked his landscapes with him.

So yes, I’m party pris, and others will disagree with me. But there’s a contrary case to be made to Nick Dear’s and that’s what you’ll find  in my review, for which see the-dark-earth-and-the-light-sky