Old School with Shilo Brooks

Episode: The Secret Lives of Ordinary People
Date: February 12, 2026
Podcast by: The Free Press
Guest: David Aronovich

Overview

In this episode, Shilo Brooks speaks with award-winning journalist and author David Aronovich about Dylan Thomas’s radio play Under Milk Wood. The conversation explores how great books, especially those outside the usual canon, can shape our understanding of ourselves and others. Focusing on themes of hidden interior lives, the richness of ordinary existence, and the transformative power of language, Brooks and Aronovich dive deep into the enduring relevance of a work designed as much to be heard as read.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Discovering Under Milk Wood: Personal Resonance

• Aronovich’s Personal Connection (01:29–04:15)

  • Childhood exposure: Listened repeatedly to the 1954 BBC recording with Richard Burton as a child in London.
  • Deeply imprinted: The language, lilt, and worldliness of the Welsh village became part of his “internal wiring.”
  • Family background: Visits to Wales and family connections heightened sensitivity to the rhythms of Welsh speech.
  • Quote:

    “This creation… has become completely part of my internal wiring, part of my internal language.” — David Aronovich (03:22)

• The Unique Medium of the Radio Play (04:15–06:51)

  • Not a conventional “book” but a radio play designed to be heard.
  • The experience is best with the original BBC recording; hearing voices shapes the text.
  • Thomas died soon after its first performance, adding to the play’s mystique and poetic status.

The Essence & Structure of Under Milk Wood

• Plot & Setting (06:51–10:08)
  • A day in the life of a fictional Welsh town, seen through poetic, omniscient narration.
  • The audience is positioned as an omnipotent observer, privy to dreams, secrets, and daily routines.
  • The poetic nature and richness of the language exceed typical dramatic writing.
  • Welsh language and identity: The play is steeped in culture, rhythms, and a sense of being on the UK’s margins.

Comic or Tragic? Attitude Toward Ordinary People

• Brooks’s Question: Is Thomas Mocking or Ennobling? (12:47–13:49)
  • Is rural life portrayed as quaint and backward, or as deeply human and universal?
  • Aronovich’s Response: Not pure comedy or mockery. The townsfolk aren’t “deplorables”—they are ordinary, neither to be looked up to nor down upon, but recognized in their fullness.
  • Quote:

    “We are neither bad nor good here Under Milkwood… Eli Jenkins tells you in a way what to think about all this, which is we’re ordinary folk in all our occasional nobility. And there is nobility, there is… in our sins, we’re ordinary and we are you.” — David Aronovich (15:13)

Universality of Hidden Longings

• The Secret Interiors of the Ordinary (15:51–17:00)

  • The narrator invites the reader to see characters’ dreams and desires, encouraging empathy.
  • Brooks: Our own “secret lives” mirror those of the villagers.
  • Quote:

    “Every day you have thoughts which you wouldn’t want anyone else to know you have. [Thomas] tells you what those thoughts… are. And you alone can see them. You alone can hear them. You alone know.” — David Aronovich (16:45)

• Reading as an Omnipotent Witness (17:00–18:18)

  • The narrative perspective puts the reader in a “God-like” stance: able to see souls, dreams, and private yearnings.
  • Raises reflections on how unconscious longings shape everyday actions.

Empathy, Judgment, and Human Nature

• Psychoanalysis and Self-Understanding (18:18–20:33)
  • Aronovich discusses how his interest in psychoanalysis and empathy is shaped by early absorption of the play.
  • The ability to see and not judge (or scapegoat) echoes the play’s democratic vision of humanity.
  • Memorable Example:
    • Lily Smalls’ soliloquy before the mirror: “Most of us who aren’t gorgeous have had moments in front of the mirror… You look and think, well, I mean, I had to make do with that face. That’s mine.”

Character Studies

• On Universality among the Play’s Characters (20:37–23:38)
  • Everyone can identify with some aspect of the villagers—from murderous fantasies (Mr. Pugh), to dreams unfulfilled (No Good Boyo), to nostalgia and loss (Captain Cat).
  • Quote on Captain Cat:

    “You could comprehend that he was feeling about them. You could comprehend them coming back. You know, Rosie Probert who says, come on up, boys, I’m dead… you remember her, but she’s dead.” — David Aronovich (22:44)

The Play as “Reality TV”: Interiority vs. Exteriority

• Modern Obsession with Exteriority (23:49–25:32)

  • Brooks compares the play to “reality TV before its time,” but stresses the difference: the play emphasizes the hidden inner life, while contemporary culture is obsessed with the outer, performative self.
  • Thomas prompts listeners to recall the “rich and complicated and sometimes terrifying and sometimes, you know, utterly joyful inner lives that we possess.”

• Double Empathy: With Self and Others (25:32–27:24)

  • Not just about discovering one’s own interior life, but remembering others have interiors too.
  • Reality TV offers “surface” only, but Thomas draws the audience into genuine empathy.

• Attachment without Detachment (27:24–28:21)

  • To truly understand the play, one must see oneself in its characters—the attachment comes from recognizing our own oddities mirrored back.

The Language: Beauty, Humor, and Depth

• Reading a Favorite Passage (28:44–33:01)

  • Aronovich reads the Mr. and Mrs. Pugh scene (29:05–31:12):

    “Alone in the hissing laboratory of his wishes, Mr. Pugh minces among bad vats and jeroboams, tiptoes through spinnies of murdering herbs, agony dancing in his crucibles, and mixes especially for Mrs. Pugh a venomous porridge, unknown to toxicologists…”

  • The language produces both laughter and discomfort; it’s a blend of poetic excess, comic timing, and existential recognizability.
  • Brooks and Aronovich reflect: Even if we don’t (or wouldn’t) murder our spouses, “you kind of know what he feels” (33:01).

• Thomas’s Humorous Power

  • The hissing laboratory of the mind: everyone has their “secret, dark thoughts.”
  • The play invites us to recognize our own secrets in the secrets of others.

Books as Medicine; Anti-cliché

• Old School’s Premise: Reading as Remedy (35:09–36:01)

  • Brooks asks: For what “ailment” is Under Milk Wood the “medicine”?
  • Aronovich: The play counteracts the “flatness and cliché” of everyday language and assumption—restoring the world’s wonder through poetic description.
  • Quote:

    “Cliché… is our great enemy. The way in which you can replace thinking with non-thinking by the use of language that doesn’t take you anywhere.” — David Aronovich (36:44)

• On Language and World-Building (38:39–41:19)

  • The exuberant language of Thomas creates vivid worlds out of the ordinary:

    “Cold gray cottage pie… makes you think how that food came into being, what that food tells you about the household. Why would it be cold? Why would it be gray?” — David Aronovich (38:49)

  • Brooks: The “narrowness” of experience is rooted in the narrowness of vocabulary; Thomas “declares war” on that.

Influence & Lasting Lessons

• On the Humanizing Spirit of the Humanities (41:40–43:23)
  • Aronovich: The great lesson from Under Milk Wood is to “dislike writing people off” or scapegoating—essential in a humane society.
  • Early, subconscious exposure to the play shaped his adult beliefs in empathy and anti-cynicism.
  • Brooks: True humanities education leads to identification with (not contempt for) the ordinary.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On empathy:

  “They are you. These desires, their secret lives… we all have secret lives inside of us. Thomas is a master at bringing those things out.” — Shilo Brooks (15:51)

• On language:

  “Nothing about Under Milk Wood is surface, really. It’s all happening below the surface.” — David Aronovich (38:25)

• On anti-elitism:

  “What Dylan Thomas has done for me is make me not have contempt for anybody anywhere. It’s helped me not pass judgment on people. It’s helped me see myself in them.” — Shilo Brooks (46:07)

• On universality:

  “You cannot be totally sure that that person who you think you have a kind of notion of… they also have secret [thoughts].” — David Aronovich (34:37)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and discovering the play: 00:24–04:15
• Exploring the radio play as medium: 04:15–06:51
• Summary of plot/structure: 06:51–10:08
• Welsh identity & language: 10:08–12:47
• Mockery or elevation of ordinary people?: 12:47–15:51
• Secret lives and empathy: 15:51–18:18
• Psychoanalysis and interiority: 18:18–20:33
• Favorite characters & universal experience: 20:37–23:38
• Reality TV & the modern obsession with exteriors: 23:49–25:32
• Empathy and the double interior: 25:32–27:24
• Reading/performing Mr. & Mrs. Pugh scene (humor): 28:44–33:01
• Language and anti-cliché as literary medicine: 36:01–38:49
• On the influence of the play: 41:40–43:23

Lightning Round (47:52–52:21)

• Favorite Welsh word/place: Llangollen, Mvunwe—a name/song.
• Recently mind-changing book: Paul Scott’s Staying On—sympathy for the unsympathetic.
• Most mind-boggling conspiracy theory: Princess Diana’s “murder”—reveals our craving for narrative arcs.
• Prime Minister described in one word: Impassive.
• British politics in one word: A mess.
• London hidden gem: Sir John Soane’s Museum in Bloomsbury.

Final Reflections

David Aronovich:
Under Milk Wood encourages us to “give some kind of idea of the depth of human experience and the fact that everybody has a depth of experience in one way or another, even if they don’t have the language… None of us have the language usually to describe it best. Which is a good reason for turning to the very, very few people who do, as a way of kind of opening up your capacity to think about it.” (47:17)

Shilo Brooks closing:
The play is a call to humility, empathy, and a richer experience of the ordinary by learning to see—and listen—afresh.

For further reading:
Old School with Shilo Brooks Book List