The Frogmen Last week, I particularly liked that reminiscent documentary,
The Frogmen, which told of the under-water men, those hardy individu- alists who attacked the Tirpitz ' with midget submarines in her Norwegian fiord, or laid " limpet " charges to hulls thought safe in harbour. All due credit was given to the Italians who pioneered this hazardous kind of warfare • and the four British V.C.s who spoke of their own exploits spoke modestly but (thank heaven !) with not too British a reserve. Mr. James Gleeson wrote a good script, marred only once or twice with cliches like " deathless courage," which fell oddly on ears attuned to the laconicisms of the Royal Navy. This sort of programme, which is dramatic only within the limit of established facts, is one that the B.B.C. does very well, and other broadcasting systems do hardly at all. Where the material itself is so intrinsically exciting, radio does well to follow the counsel of Kipling's surgeon: " Facts are all the examiners require, gen-tel-men." A good deal more dramatic allurement, however, went well in Mr. Francis Dilbn's more romantic The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake.
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