LONG LIVE LAUGHARNE!
A WORDS & MUSIC FESTIVAL IN THE SMALL WELSH TOWN WHERE DYLAN THOMAS RESTS IS A TREAT
I do like a ruined castle. And a picnic table. Laugharne offers both.
Laugharne is a small town in west Wales. You may have heard of it if a) you are Welsh b) you dig Dylan Thomas c) you have attended the Laugharne Weekender.
I’m just back from the 2026 Laugharne Weekender - the 19th - and it was a blast. Beginning on Friday evening and continuing across Saturday and Sunday, there are Q&As with writers/musicians/comedians, stand-up performances and live music.
I was invited due to the forthcoming publication of an updated edition of Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Romani-Gypsy Musicians - my book on Balkan Roma musicians - so shared a Sunday afternoon event with John Williams, a friend and writer I profiled in 2024 here, as he also has an old book Into The Badlands: Travels Through Urban America coming back into print.
In a pub’s upstairs room we sat on our respective stools and traded stories of roaming and interviewing (in John’s case it was US crime writers: he encounters Elmore Leonard, James Crumley, James Ellroy, Sara Paretsky, Tony Hillerman and other notable authors), reflecting on our initial forays in foreign lands.
In both our cases, several of our most significant interviewees have died.
More notable than artist death is the ongoing choking of civil society in the US and Balkans: I didn’t mention it on Sunday but note in the new edition how the adjective “Balkanised” can now be applied to the US and UK, not just the south east European lands it once described.
“Who murdered our democracy” is a subject no crime writer would ever consider - its just too heavy. The Roma, on the other hand, know just how fragile Western “civilisation” can be.
Anyway, I’ll surely post on PAM again here as publication date (24/04) nears so will only add that I highly recommend Into The Badlands, both as a travelogue and a profile of US crime writers when the genre was still “underground” (and at its creative peak).
My Saturday journey to get to Laugharne went like this: bus to Elephant & Castle, tube to Paddington, train to Newport, coach to Cardiff, train to Carmarthen, taxi to Laugharne… around 7 hours+ in motion. The first event I caught was BBC 6 Music presenter Zakia Sewell speaking on her just published book Finding Albion.
Here Sewell, a mixed race women, seeks “an alternative spirit of Britain” in folk songs, Celtic seasonal rites, mystic stone circles and even Notting Hill Carnival’s Afro-Caribbean festivities. British folk music has, across the decades, allowed for artists and listeners to create interpretations (social, political, regional) that open new dialogues and ways of thinking and at Laugharne this continuation was demonstrated by Eliza Carthy, Jon Wilks and Angelina Morrison.
Angelina Morrison and autoharp: perfect Sunday morning music.
Carthy hails from British folk’s first family, daughter of Martin and (the sadly late) Norma Carthy. Originally this date was going to be her and her dad doing what they’ve done all their lives. Martin’s physical frailty means he remains at home in Yorkshire thus Eliza is now touring so to pay tribute to his songs. Here she’s accompanied by guitarist Jon Wilks and vocalist Angeline Morrison + on a couple of songs her son on guitar (the family tradition/business continues).
Comedian Stewart Lee, who was active across the weekend, introduced Carthy by recalling seeing, aged 17, Martin changing trains with his guitar strapped to his back and thinking “that’s what I want to do when I’m old” - noting that Martin was probably aged around 37 then! A suitably witty introduction for a musician who laughs almost as much as she sings.
I’ve not seen Eliza perform for years and she remains a whirlwind of fiery fiddling, strong singing, raucous humour and huge enthusiasm. I believe Eliza could start playing and light up any room in the world - give this woman her own TV show!
Wilks is a masterful guitarist and singer who drolly recalled listening to Martin Carthy records when all his teenage contemporaries were into the Spice Girls. Morrison is solemn and statuesque: here she sang very personal interpretations of songs she had learnt from Martin.
On Sunday at midday Morrison did her own solo show in the same church she’d performed in with Wilks and Carthy the night before. As I’ve noted, her songs are solemn - I’d recommend everyone listen to her extraordinary 2022 album The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs Of Black British Experience - on the album and in concert she sings strikingly mournful folk songs based on slivers of British history she has researched. I believe The Sorrow Songs influenced Sewell’s themes in Finding Albion.
To perform solo, sometimes acapella, otherwise accompanied only by an auto-harp, requires both talent and confidence; Morrison possesses both in spades. Songs such as Cruel Mother Country and Unknown African Boy (d.1830) make overlooked historic tragedies come alive, the hurt in them is palpable.
The Tubs bring the noise: perfect Saturday night music.
Saturday night featured The Tubs, one of Britain’s most highly rated young indie rock bands, their 2025 sophomore album Cotton Crown blending elements of Flying Nun lo-fi indiepop with a pinch of Television, a brooding melancholy reflective of Richard Thompson, alongside a dynamic element honed by constant touring. Kick ass? Yes, I think The Tubs could be described as a “kick ass rock ‘n’ roll band”. No one ever wrote that of The Chills…
The Tubs have fresh, jangly songs that pack a punch. Its rare for me to recommend a contemporary rock band but, having seen The Tubs, I think most Yak readers would enjoy their bracing blast.
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When not catching musicians, comedians or writers I did a lot of walking around Laugharne. The town is set on the estuary of the River Taf - I’ve occasionally heard the Welsh referred to as “Tafs” but never, until now, had any idea why! - and surrounded by rolling farmland.
That Dylan Thomas spent his last years living here (and is buried in Laugharne’s churchyard) has proved a boon as Thomas’ poems and Under Milk Wood radio drama remain favourites worldwide.
Boathouse/writing room with a view.
Wandering about, I noted the boathouse where Thomas had his office - apparently it was a converted car garage (its a good distance from the water) but ‘boathouse’ sounds more, well, poetic - and it exists today as a time capsule marker to when Dylan would sit there and struggle with the words that created his remarkable oeuvre.
There’s also other locations linked to Thomas, including The Dylan Coastal Resort, a 5 star spa/wellness hub - I wonder what DT, one of the wild men of letters who drank himself to death aged 39, would make of such? Probably consider it preferable to the Priory for rehab.
And, of course, I visited his simple grave where he resides alongside his wife Caitlin Macnamara (who was, it seems, as temperamental and given to alcohol abuse as Thomas - she somehow made it to 80). Reading on Dylan, I learnt that Allen Curnow, the first Kiwi modernist poet, visited him in Laugharne in October 1949.
Curnow’s grandson Ben was a friend of mine since adolescence - not that we ever discussed poetry - sadly dying suddenly last year. No chance then for me to ask Ben if he has a family exclusive to share here.
On the other side of the cross it contains Caitlin Macnamara’s name and d.o.b.-d.o.d
Sunday evening found the festival rising to finish on a high: Budgie, the former drummer with The Slits and Siouxsie & the Banshees chatted merrily about his humble origins, drumming aged 12 with local cabaret bands, joining Liverpool punk bands then heading to London for a degree of fame and fortune.
Quite the gentleman, he preferred speaking about losing his mother aged 12 than how he and the goth queen came together (then later fell bitterly apart). I guess you have to read his memoir The Absence to get the dirt on his long, messy marriage to Siouxsie.
Get this: the Weekender also featured drummers from The Smiths and Blur, all touting memoirs, but I skipped those two: one rock drummer a festival’s enough for me. Thinking about it, Siouxsie, Morrissey & Damon are three of British rock’s worst vocalists, all so flat and self-absorbed. Lucky for them they all had decent drummers to push the music forward.
Laetitia Sadier - best known as co-leader of Sterolab - played a solo set in the same church that Angeline Morrison had begun the day’s proceedings. Like Morrison, Sadier is statuesque and performed without accompaniment. She played electric guitar and trombone (a very effective pairing) and an effects box that allowed her to loop notes and activate pre-recorded effects.
Singing in English and French, Sadier made music that possessed an eerie, atmospheric power, very different from Morrison’s but equally effective.
There were more bands playing past the witching hour but, as I was beginning to wilt, I decided to ignore Dylan’s famous poetic directive, instead going gentle into the good night: no raging (or raving) for this weary Kiwi.
Apparently Thomas described Laugharne as a “timeless, mild, beguiling island of a town.” Nice! I think that fits both the town and the festival. And perhaps it fits Wales, an undersung nation with much beauty and charm.
The 2027 Laugharne Weekender will surely be quite an event.
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Laetitia Sadier blows her ‘bone: perfect Sunday night music.