THE NATIONAL THEATRE’S Olivier stage has been transformed into an arena for this imaginative reworking of Dylan Thomas’s 1954 radio play, with Sian Owen’s additional material, set in a care home, framing Thomas’s poetic invocation of a day in the life of the Welsh village Llareggub.

With more than a passing similarity to the playwright himself, Martin Sheen undertakes the narrator’s role and desperately attempts to reconnect with his alienated and unresponsive father through memories of the past.

The home’s residents are gradually drawn into the fantastical imaginings of the dreaming Llareggub characters and, as the day unfolds, the village appears in a series of vignettes as the old people throw off their years to reinvest their characters with all of Dylan’s passion, spleen and humour.

The 14-strong cast in what's an ensemble production illuminate most of the 60 roles and, apart from Sheen’s increasingly assured and passionate narration as he realises how his lyrical words are rekindling life in his father, there are a number of magical performances.

Sian Phillips casts off the years to become the subject of town gossip as the promiscuous Polly Garter, losing herself in furtive liaisons but never forgetting her true dead love, Alan David’s hen-pecked Mr Pugh, with his captivating, deadpan fantasies about poisoning his wife, and Ifan Huw Dafydd’s larger-than-life butcher and baker revel in the language of their vivid caricatures.

Lyndsey Turner’s direction works hard and is mostly successful in transforming a play for voices into a drama for the stage but it feels at times as if she is struggling against the essence of Dylan’s work.

His dense alliterative images, vivid metaphors and lyrical meanderings occasionally feel self-indulgent and the sense of being gorged on sound rather than meaning does not always aid the dramatic presentation.

The mundane nature of the language and activities of the care home —  a highly topical touch — highlight the poetic intensity of the original material. But it is the moments of stillness, where the play reverts to a purely auditory experience, that provide some of the most effective moments, such as the blind Captain Cat’s soundscape of the town.

It was a real pleasure to see live theatre once again but Dylan’s play, sometimes linguistically bewitching and sometimes prolix, is not necessarily a perfect fit for the stage.

Runs until July 24, box office: nationaltheatre.org.uk