To mark 100 years since his birth, A Poet in New Yorkportrays the final days of Dylan Thomas’ life, and with such an infamous story comes a great responsibility. Thankfully and fittingly, our cast and crew boasted some of the most talented people working in British Drama today – an Andrew Davies script, Aisling Walsh directing, and Tom Hollander cast in the lead role.
Tom Hollander as Dylan Thomas in A Poet in New York
This was a big project in subject and scale. As a production secretary you’re really there to make sure everyone else on the crew is happy and can do their jobs properly. It’s a broad remit but most of the time that means getting people to and from set, making sure everyone’s supplied with the equipment they need, or updating spreadsheets so the accounts department can keep on top of the budget… and there can be a lot of spreadsheets.
The storyis largely set in two locations - New York City and Laugharne – and as far as two locations go they don’t come much more different than that. Because of this our three-week shoot was split in two, with two weeks’ filming in New York and one week in Laugharne.
First up was New York City (and when I say New York City, I mean Cardiff and the Vale) as little pieces of 1950s Manhattan began popping up all over the place; the White Horse Tavern, the Chelsea Hotel, St Vincent’s Hospital. The art department and construction team would be on site preparing sets days and weeks in advance, leaving momentarily for the camera crew to come in and film before returning in a flash to tear everything down and restore each location back to 21st century Cardiff. Blink and you might have missed it.
However, whilst 1950s New York can (as it turns out) be built in a few days, the view from Dylan’s writing shed overlooking the River Taf estuary was something that could not be rebuilt, recreated or replaced. And so, once we finished filming in Cardiff, it was time for everyone to up-sticks and go west, bound for Dylan Thomas’s beloved Boathouse in Laugharne.
Essie Davis as Caitlin and Tom Hollander as Dylan at Laugharne boathouse.
After visiting Laugharne it’s as though you come to understand Dylan’s work a little better. He may have died a poetic rock-star, surrounded by the bright lights of Manhattan, but Dylan always belonged in west Wales. Much of his poetry draws directly from the places he lived and the land that surrounded him, and so to have that very landscape and Dylan’s very own home available to us brought incredible value to the production.
The scenery created an unbeatable backdrop for the cast and crew to work with, but our move to this tiny town in west Wales also created a small problem for the production team. Where do the cast and crew sleep?!
With over 50 people to accommodate, finding room for everyone in Laugharne was a bit like over-packing a suitcase for a holiday - somehow we managed to get everyone in but there wasn’t an inch to spare once we had. A wedding party had already booked up several of the town’s hotels when we came to reserve rooms, and so we found ourselves calling first dibs if the bride suddenly got cold feet. Thankfully, everyone was housed without anyone being jilted.
I spent my week with a lot of the crew in Pendine Sands Caravan Park (a massive site just down the road from Laugharne), and before we arrived I spent two weeks trying to work out on the site map where each person’s caravan was. That might sound like I’m being over-dramatic but with an entire crew all arriving late at night after a long day’s filming my orienteering skills were going to be crucial - and I never got that badge as a boy-scout.
Production secretaries don’t technically have a reason to be on set very often, and so it’s important that if you do manage to get out of the office and visit a location you try to look as busy as possible.
It’s a common cliché that film sets are magical places, but most of the time they’re more like a magician’s workshop. People are bustling about, setting up lights, altering angles and changing lenses; all in order to pull off the trick convincingly. There’s always the danger of course that once you know how a trick works it won’t seem like magic anymore, but this wasn’t the case on A Poet in New York.
There were several moments during this shoot when the tragedy of Dylan Thomas’ final days hit you right in the gut - just like the rich, booming voice of the great poet himself – and you realised the importance and literary genius of his life and work. Throughout 2014, Wales and the world beyond will be awash with anniversary tributes and celebrations, hopefully this film can lead the way.
As a production secretary you might not have the most glamorous of tasks at times, but a small role in a project like this is still a pretty special privilege.
A Poet in New York is on BBC One Wales, Wednesday 30 April at 21:00.
To discover more about the life, work and legacy of Welsh poet and broadcaster Dylan Thomas go to bbc.co.uk/dylanthomas.
