English author Edward Morgan Forster OM CH (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970), particularly known for his books A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924), lived mostly at Kings College Cambridge from 1947 until his death, writing little in the final 45 years of his life. Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, guitarist and songwriter who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965, but left the band in 1968 possibly following excessive drug use, and retired from music making in 1972, doing little until his early death. This entertaining radio play imagines a situation where Barrett calls on Forster in his rooms in 1968, ostensibly trying to buy back an early painting that Forster bought of his several years earlier. Although of different generations and vastly differing ages, they share the pain of having their creativity "dry up" early in their careers, and of the challenge of having found fame and success in their chosen fields very young. Forster, of course, has never heard of Barrett or his music (although his young college servant has!), but over several glasses of sherry they bond, discuss the challenges of creativity, and Forster councils the younger man in deciding what to do with his life. They each reveal the pain of their pasts, Forster his homosexuality, and Barrett, the early loss of his father. A gentle tender well paced play which I enjoyed very much. Starring Simon Russell Beale as E M Forster, Tyger Drew-Honey as Syd Barrett and Madeleine Leslay as a college bedder. Sound design by Giovanni Sipiano. Directed by Willi Richards. Produced by Roger James Elsgood. Dramatization by Roger James Elsgood of Haydn Middleton’s novel of the same name. In life, of course, they never met. First broadcast May 2023.