It’s November 1953 and Dylan Thomas, Britain’s finest poet, is dying in a hospital bed in New York. What brought him to this end is not clear. But he is a man tormented by fear – fear of failing as a writer, fear of a marriage doomed to end in disaster, even fear of death itself – all of which have led him to find comfort in alcohol, outrageous behaviour and the arms of other women.
Now, as Dylan lies waiting for the end, he thinks back over his life, from his childhood in Swansea to his days as a wild young poet in London, from his tempestuous marriage to Caitlin MacNamara to his final weeks in New York.
Dylan Thomas may not have wanted to die but he had little desire to live. An interesting and attractive figure, who was doomed. Do Not Go Gentle paints a picture of a man who has clearly reached the end of his tether.
