A Radio Fantasy Specially Written for Broadcasting by JOHN OVERTON
Produced by PERCY EDGAR
EPISODE I : UNDER BIGNOR HILL. A.D. 407
THE black bulk of the Downs rises against a a stormy sunset, shot with orange and crimson. Woods gleam in the deep valleys and on the skyline a watch-tower stands, its beacon lamp shining a faint primrose yellow. White against a background of trees, a Roman villa gleams in the twilight, a fairy thing of slender pillars and dripping fountains. Below it, hidden in the shadows of the Weald, a score of rough cottages huddle together. A man comes down the village and enters t he last house.
EPISODE II.: ON THE FRINGE OF SHERWOOD,
A.D. 1190
You look out between a tangle of under--L growth, upon a glade at the edge of Sherwood Forest. A slim youth of fourteen sits beside a dying fire, picking out an air upon a lute. A couple of pots steam above the embers, and the trampled grass indicates that the spot is used as a gathering place. Half hidden by the trees stand scattered booths of branches, and rough tents such as gipsies use.
Birds sing sleepily and a brook tinkles somewhere out of sight.
EPISODE III : THE ROOMS AT BATH, A.D. 1755
FROM a little gallery tucked away like a swallow's nest below the ceiling, a company of musicians-half-seen in the shadows-play for the couple who dance below. Candles gutter in the girandoles upon the walls, and ranged around the room sits that multifarious crowd which meekly conforms to the rules laid down by Richard Nash , Esq., nicknamed The King of Bath.' You see His Majesty pottering about the place, meticulous, foppish, and very old, hiding a worldly anxiety beneath a solemn pomp that would be ludricrous were it not so pathetic.
EPISODE IV. : A RIVERSIDE GARDEN AT MAIDEN-
HEAD, A.D. 1925
OX a wide lawn that sweeps down to the river, two or three couples are dancing to the strains of a loud speaker set in the window of the house above them. Occasionally a boat passes, hardly visible but for the glimmer of the white flannels or the glow of a Chinese lantern.