Film choice

Tootsie (1982) FILM4, 6.45PM ★★★★

When actor Michael Dorsey transforms himself into Dorothy Michaels in a desperate attempt to get work, complications arise as he falls for a female friend (Jessica Lange) and her father (Charles Durning) falls for him. Although you never quite believe that Dustin Hoffman in drag would convince everyone that he’s a woman, it doesn’t matter: Tootsie is lots of fun – and it’s a sharply observed social satire, too.

Night Mail (1936, b/w) TALKING PICTURES TV, 7.35PM ★★★★★

This inspired film, about a London-to-glasgow postal train, was made as a promotional piece by the General Post Office Film Unit during the British documentary film movement and represented a creative peak for the genre.

Its most celebrated sequence features music by Benjamin Britten and the narration of WH Auden’s poem Night Mail over rhythmic montage images of racing train wheels.

Hot Shots! (1991) COMEDY CENTRAL, 9.00PM ★★★

Reinventing Charlie Sheen as a deadpan comic actor, this cult satire, from director Jim Abrahams, is a spoof of over-the-top Eighties action dramas. It focuses on Topper Harley (Sheen), a handsome fighter pilot assigned to the navy on a mission to destroy Saddam Hussein’s nuclear plants. First, however, he must overcome his personal demons. It’s puerile, but nevertheless very entertaining.