Documentary

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 435, 24 October 1947, Page 17

Documentary

‘| HE BBC documentary Middle East, ‘" heard recently from 4YA, is the type of programme we hear too seldom. Other programmes give us facts-usually told in a monotone, like beads on a verbal string, by a speaker full of erudition but lacking in broadcasting technique. Other programmes are well presented, wasting a great deal of clever

production on poor material. Middle East gave us interesting facets of life in Egypt, Syria, and so on, with particular reference to the part played by the armed forces during the war, in such activities as organising supplies of grain, produce, etc.; the combating of the locust plague; the attempt to teach the villagers the necessity for taking steps to avoid further-soil erosion. Presented in a series of dramatic vignettes, with the local colour applied not merely for its own sake but to heighten the effect of certain scenes, and with a cast of speakeis ranging from the Egyptian school-child to the Scottish engineer, the facts were so well camouflaged that it was not until afterwards that the listener realised that the programme was a documentary, and that entertainment ‘had at the same time provided education. I notice that the word "documentary" was used in The Listener to describe this programme; it is an excellent method of presenting such a subjectand how attractive would the story of our own environs and people appear if given us in the same manner, instead of being presented, as it often is now, in lecture-form by uninspired speakers!