Channel Hopping

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

Today - Channel 4, 7.35pm EVEN as a kid, I think I realised there was something faintly ridiculous about Marvel Comics and the entire superhero thing. Given that the genre is still thriving after all these years, though, others clearly begged to differ. This 2011 film is about a US soldier who ends up with extraordinary powers after taking a magic serum. It stars Chris Evans, although I’m fairly certain this isn’t the red-haired broadcaster best known for going on the beer with Gazza.

BODYGUARD

Tomorrow - BBC1, 9pm THIS new six-part thriller is based around David Budd (Richard Madden), a troubled veteran of the Afghanistan War now working as a police protection officer for controversial British Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes, above). The BBC blurb says: ‘Dedicated to his job but concealing deep resentment of politicians following his traumas in Helmand, David’s divided loyalties might make him Julia’s greatest threat’.

STRANGE OCCURRENCES IN A SMALL IRISH VILLAGE

Tuesday - RTÉ1, 10.40pm IT isn’t exactly the catchiest title in the world, is it? Still, this 100minute film about Knock in Co. Mayo (and, of course, the reported apparition there in 1879) sounds reasonably promising. The local residents profiled by director Aoife Kelleher include ‘eight siblings who run rival religious merchandise shops’ and a priest ‘seeking to attract transatlantic visitors to Knock’.

THE NO. 5 WAR

Thursday - BBC4, 9pm ALMOST a century has passed since the launch of Chanel No. 5, which still stakes a claim as the world’s best-known perfume. This hourlong documentary looks at how Coco Chanel later used Nazi connections in a bid to seize control of the business from her Jewish partners.