YORK film production company Mad As Birds will present their debut feature, the enigmatic, magic-realist Dylan Thomas biopic Set Fire To The Stars, at City Screen, York, on Tuesday, January 20th.

Special screenings yesterday were attended by lead actor and co-writer Celyn Jones and co-producer Andy Evans, who has lived in Acaster Malbis for two years now, hence the company's registered address. They both took part in question-and-answer sessions after each show.

Jones and Evans formed Mad As Birds with co-producer A J Riach and director and co-writer Andy Goddard to make an account of a few weeks in the life of hell-raising Welsh poet Dylan Thomas as he embarks on a disastrous tour of American universities in 1950. By his side is young poetry professor and admirer John Malcolm Brinnin, whose philosophy for looking after the firebrand is "I'll improvise", but a fragile friendship is stretched beyond the limit.

In Spring 2013, the Mad As Birds four launched into pre-production and within 12 months the film was close to completion. Filmed in only 18 days, with Swansea, South Wales, deputising for New York City for the shoot, it stars not only newcomer Jones as Thomas but also Hollywood leading light Elijah Wood as the harassed Brinnin, while Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys provides the original soundtrack.

"Dylan Thomas has been a lifetime passion," says fellow Welshman Celyn. "To make this story into a film is a dream, as there was first a chance to do it as a play Off-Broadway ten years ago, when every night in a bar someone would say 'when are you going to play Dylan Thomas with your round face and curly hair?'."

No play ensued but move forward a decade and Celyn and Andy Goddard were halfway through writing their chamber film piece – "a character-driven slice of life", as Celyn calls it – when Andy said he would love Elijah Wood to play Brinnin. "We finished the script with Elijah in mind and we worked out a link to lead to his agency in America," he says.

Agent and actor alike responded enthusiastically. "What attracted Elijah was that it was going to be shot in black and white, as we sort of think Dylan Thomas only exists in black and white, from all the photographs, and to make it authentic to the time, you think in black and white to create the world of New York," says Celyn.

Wood fitted in immediately. "Within five minutes of arriving, you get past Lord Of The Rings; he rocked up with his records and he turned up on his own," says Andy Evans.

"We wouldn't have got it filmed in 18 days if he'd been a Hollywood diva, but he was just a normal guy."

Fellow producer A J Riach was equally impressed. "Elijah was very forthcoming," he recalls. "We told him what we wanted to do, and he just said 'let's not try to reinvent the wheel' and he was very accommodating to work with us."

The other key signing was Welsh musician Gruff Rhys. Evans had produced a Super Furry Animals DVD in 2001 and Rhys was quick to sign up to the film. "He pretty much wrote the soundtrack just from the script without seeing film footage," says Andy. "In fact I'm not sure if he's yet seen the finished version!"

The Mad As Birds team love the results "We wanted to just let Gruff off the leash as we felt he should be able to put his authorship on it and he's certainly done that," says Celyn. "He's very much an artist and a writer and it 's a perfect match for us, commenting on that world and unifying ideas of the Welsh identity, as he's someone who's already taken that identity on to an international platform."

Vital to the film too was Celyn's interpretation of Dylan Thomas, inspired not least by the photograph of the Welsh poet with his feet up, rocking on a chair, on the cover of the Dylan Thomas Omnibus.

"On the back sleeve, Dylan says 'I have the beast, the angel and the madman all within me', and I think a lot of us have all those elements, but he had them on the biggest scale, and I wanted this film to show the man who had all three," says Celyn.

"Thomas was a man who created beautiful poetry but he could create a scene too, and the film had to show that irreverent humour, so that people could say 'I know a Dylan'."

Looking ahead, the Mad As Birds quartet will be working again on another film. Celyn is working on the script already, so watch this space.

Set Fire To The Stars will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 2nd.

 

Only One Question for... Celyn Jones, the Welsh actor and writer who fills the shoes of firebrand poet Dylan Thomas in Set Fire To The Stars

What inspired your portrayal of Dylan Thomas, Celyn?

“There’s a photograph of him with his feet up, rocking on a chair, on the cover of the Dylan Thomas Omnibus. On the back sleeve, Dylan says ‘I have the beast, the angel and the madman all within me’, and I think a lot of us have all those elements, but he had them on the biggest scale, and I wanted this film to show the man who had all three.

“Thomas was a man who created beautiful poetry but he could create a scene too, and the film had to show that irreverent humour, so that people might say ‘I know a Dylan too’.”

• For tickets, ring 0871 902 5726 or book online at picturehouses.co.uk/york