'TIME: The Present
'SCENE: A deserted garden on the outskirts of Bander Abbas, Persia
[...]
'The laughter-loving philosophy of Omar Khayyam, and the tuneful melodies of Lehmann’s “In a Persian Garden,” from a colorful background for “TO-DAY BE SWEET.” The story opens when two world weary and disillusioned travellers meet by chance in a deserted garden on the outskirts of Bundar Abbas, the port in the Persian Gulf. “He” and “She” are complete strangers, but under the magic spell of an Eastern moon, and a dragoman who seems to be a reincarnation of the wine-bibbing Omar himself, they draw nearer one another into a closer intimacy, and find surcease for aching hearts. “’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, played in a box whose Candle is the Sun, round which we Phantom Figures come and go,” says Omar, and whether the strange and whimsical characters who wander round and about this garden are real flesh and blood, or whether they be “phantom figures” from out of the by-gone years, matters little to the emotions of the moment; they play their part, sing their song, and then, “vanish with the rose.”'
Source: [Radio guide], Wireless Weekly, 2 June 1933, p.25.
Based on the work of Omar Khayyam and the song-cycle 'In a Persian Garden' by Liza Lehmann. Broadcast on Saturday 3 June 1933 on 2FC, 3LO, 2CO, 5CL, and 5CK, from 8pm.
Producer: Humphrey Bishop.
Cast: Yvonne Banvard (Pamela Braithwaite) and John Pickard (Peter Lofting), both travellers on a world cruise; Eric Masters (Said, the Dragoman); Rene Dixon (Saki, a Dancing Girl); Zena Moller, Eileen Boyd, Alfred Wilmore, and Walter Kinglsey (soloists).
