Michael Sheen and Sian Phillips to star in ‘Under Milk Wood’ at National Theatre

Performances will begin in June.

The National Theatre will reopen its doors later this year, with Michael Sheen and Sian Phillips starring in Under Milk Wood. Staged in a reconfigured Olivier Theatre, Under Milk Wood will begin performances from 16 June.

Lyndsey Turner will direct Dylan Thomas' 1954 play, originally presented as a radio drama. Set in a Welsh fishing village, a narrator invites audiences to the tightknit community, including a blind sea captain, a pair of widows and music-obsessed inhabitants. For the upcoming production, Under Milk Wood will be presented in-the-round, with all performances at the Olivier Theatre presented in this configuration until early 2022. 

In an interview in The Telegraph, artistic director Rufus Norris said: ""[Under Milk Wood is] a big hearted classic about community... the way it's going to be done will speak to what we've just been through."

Michael Sheen will star in Under Milk Wood, recently playing Chris Tarrant in the TV adaptation of James Graham's Quiz. Siân Phillips will return to the National Theatre, previously in Les Blancs, but has also starred in Calendar Girls.

Casting is completed by Susan Brown, Ifan Huw Dafydd, Alan David, Michael Elwyn, Kezrena James, Karl Johnson, Gaynor Morgan Rees, Anthony O'Donnell and Cleo Sylvestre. 

The National Theatre's smallest space, the Dorfman, will also reopen its doors in June with Jack Thorne's After Life. Prior to theatres closing in December, the National Theatre staged Dick Whittington and Death of England: Delroy.

Under Milk Wood is at the National Theatre from 16 June - 24 July.

^{Photo credit: National Theatre (Photo by mondo on Flickr)}