ACTOR IN PERSIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 671, 16 May 1952, Page 11

ACTOR IN PERSIA

[EOUBTLESS by luck rather than programme planning, John Trevor's talk on Persia (2YC, April 26), followed a news report of the British Government's case in the oil dispute, but it was an added inducement to stay up and listen. These were the superficial impressions of a wartime traveller who passed rapidly through the country with, he confessed, his mind on other things, but an observant and sensitive traveller, nonetheless. My slight irritation at Mr. Trevor's rather precious manner and studied use of the fine descriptive phrase gave way to admiration jof the way he used all his actor's talent to convey the varied moods of an exciting and dramatic land. Here was someone who could describe not. only the grandeur of the changing scenery, the Arabian Nights romance, and the courtesy of the people, but the squalor and the smells, the poverty and exploitation, and the industrial power and petty class distinctions of the modern oil city; who could recall for us the urgent enthusiasm for what seemed then a rather hopeless Aid to Russia campaign, and his own desire to visit first in Teheran, not the famous Peacock Throne, but the site of the Big Three conference. A

satisfying picture.

J.

T.

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