Film choice

The Seven Little Foys (1955)

BBC TWO, NOON ★★★ This comedy is most notable for its energetic song-and-dance showdown between Bob Hope, as real-life vaudeville entertainer Eddie Foy, and James Cagney, here reprising his role as George M Cohan from Yankee Doodle Dandy. Foy, after the premature death of his Italian ballerina wife, trains his seven children to join him in his act, despite protests from his family. Melville Shavelson (later of Houseboat) directs.

Arrietty (2010)

FILM4, 2.40PM ★★★★ Studio Ghibli adds another intrepid heroine to its gallery of animated classics with this film, based on The Borrowers, on which Hiromasa Yonebayashi makes his directing debut. A boy, convalescing in his aunt’s house in Tokyo, befriends a tiny girl called Arrietty, whose family survives by finding unorthodox uses for the full-size objects they find, but must always be vigilant to avoid discovery by the big “human beans”.

Senna (2010)

ITV4, 11.10PM ★★★★★ You don’t have to like motor racing to be gripped by Asif Kapadia’s documentary about Ayrton Senna. It helps that the Brazilian cuts a dashing figure, with film star looks and an almost religious approach to his sport. His rivalry with Frenchman Alain Prost is well documented here, as is the fateful 1994 San Marino Grand Prix that cost Senna his life. Kapadia’s film on football star Diego Maradona is out later this year.