What happens
Ports of Call takes listeners on a travelogue to Persia, beginning at the harbor of Kormusa on the Persian Gulf, where oil tankers stand beside Arabian sailing vessels. The episode moves through the country's history, from the teachings of Zarathustra and the conquests of Cyrus, through the tale of Sheherazade and the poet Omar Khayyam, to the twentieth-century dispute over Anglo-Persian oil leases between King Riza Shah Pahlavi and Sir John Cadman, president of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Along the way the narration describes the bazaar at Tabriz, its many traders and goods, and the modernization of Tehran under the king. The program is presented as one of the Ports of Call travel broadcasts of 1935, first aired on 30 September 1935.
Persia, including the harbor of Kormusa on the Persian Gulf, the camp beneath Mount Damavand, the bazaar at Tabriz, Nishapur, and Tehran
Characters: Cyrus, Astyages, Sheherazade, Shahriar, Omar Khayyam, Sharin, Imam Muwaffak, Riza Shah Pahlavi
Listen for: The dramatized scenes of Cyrus's victory over the Medes, the Sheherazade story, and the confrontation between Riza Shah and Sir John Cadman over the oil leases
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.