Buzz Magazine October 2013 | Page 6

roundup WHAT’S ON OUR RADAR THIS MONTH. BOOK NOW Q&A Known across South Wales as ‘The Dylan Thomas Guy’ Jeff Town talks to Lauren Sourbutts about Dylan’s Mobile Bookstore. EDITORS Great Hall, Cardiff Sat 9 Nov Tickets: £20 Info: 029 2078 1400 www.cardiffstudents.com What was it that sparked your passion for Dylan Thomas’s work? The first LP I ever bought was Bob Dylan’s, I was a huge fan of his and I read somewhere that he changed his name to Bob Dylan as a homage to a Welsh poet. My mother was Welsh and I asked her who Dylan Thomas was and she told me about a biography about him by Constantine Fitzgibbon. I read it and was hooked from then. Why do you think Thomas has such universal appeal? You can’t separate Dylan Thomas from the myths and legends that have grown up around him. He was one of the first ‘live-fast, die-young’ heroes. I think a lot of the stories about him about his drinking, womanising and bad behaviour have been exaggerated and are possibly apocryphal but there’s no smoke without fire. It’s those parts of him which attract people. Part of all of us would like to be eccentric, wild bohemians and live outside the rules but unfortunately most of us can’t and that’s what draws people to him. Why did you decide to create Dylan’s Mobile Bookstore? I had a wonderful big shop in the Dylan Thomas Centre which unfortunately closed when it changed hands. After the shop closed I came to think I’d had enough of regular bookshops but I still had lots of books left. I go to the Laugharne festival every year, and thought ‘wouldn’t it be great to bring books down here’ and decided the best way to do it was by mobile bookshop. We took it to the National Eisteddfod in Denbigh and people loved it – it reminds them of their childhood visits to mobile libraries. Where will you be taking Dylan’s Mobile Bookstore? We’ll be at Laugharne for all four festivals next year; we’ll be at the Dinefwr festival next year and I do book fairs with a wonderfully eccentric Welsh-language book collector’s association in Bala, Anglesey, Aberystwyth etc. We’ll also be in the Uplands when the Do Not Go Gentle Festival is on. Basically, I’ll go wherever I’m invited. What are your plans for celebrating the Dylan Thomas centenary next year? Along with the standard things like new performances of Under Milk Wood there’s going to be some great, rich, different responses to Dylan Thomas which are going to open the way we look at Thomas and his legacy. I’ve even got plans for some graffiti exhibitions along with some modern art responses to his work. They are the sort of areas which are more exciting to me – after doing it for forty years it’s nice to see people looking at the work and going in different directions. Info: www.dylans.com BUZZ 06 “Part of all of us would like to be eccentric, wild bohemians and live outside the rules.” SEAN LOCK (second date added) St David’s Hall, Cardiff Tues 12 Nov Tickets: £22.50 Info: 029 2087 8500 www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk THE REDUCED SHAKESPERE COMPANY Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama, Cardiff Tues 12 Nov Tickets: £15 Info: 029 2039 1391 www.rwcmd.ac.uk ALICE IN CHAINS Newport Centre, Newport Sat 16 Nov Tickets: £27.50 Info: 01633 656757 www.newport.gov.uk WALES VS AUSTRALIA: RUGBY AUTUMN INTERNATIONALS Millennium Stadium, Cardiff Sat 30 Nov Tickets: £64.77 Info: 0844 8471881 www.millenniumstadium.com TINIE TEMPAH Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff Fri 13 Dec Tickets: £25 Info: 029 2022 4488 www.motorpointarenacardiff.co.uk JOOLS HOLLAND & HIS RHYTHM AND BLUES ORCHESTRA Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff Thurs 19 Dec Tickets: £35.50 Info: 029 2022 4488 www.motorpointarenacardiff.co.uk