Captain Webb

"Who was the first man to swim the English Channel?" used to be a regular quiz question in years gone by. In giving an answer, director Justin Hardy (son of Wicker Man director Robin Hardy) puts some much-needed flesh on the titular answer. Captain Matthew Webb, a strapping former sailor with a big handlebar moustache, set out to accomplish the then-impossible feat in 1875. Hardy's homage to this doughty Victorian hero (played by Luther's Warren Brown) chronicles Webb's trials and tribulations but also reflects on a time when such derring-do was as much showbiz as personal triumph. Indeed, Webb seems more bothered by a huckster American rival (Terry Mynott) and his inflatable frogman suit than he is by the challenge of the Channel. It's not all stiff-upper-lip posturing, though. An unshowy sense of period, wry humour - Webb's mentor Professor Beckwith (Steve Oram) advises his protégé to smoke more to expand his lung capacity - and a gentle romance with Beckwith's daughter (Georgia Maguire) help to sustain this delightful dip into the past. It's no big-budget extravaganza but anything that celebrates such historic British endeavour deserves a pat on the back.