FOR vessels that are meant to operate under the strictest secrecy, submarines are attracting the kind of attention usually dished out to a new Strictly line-up.

Okay, not quite, but between Vigil and now Submarine: Life Under the Waves (Channel 5, Monday, 9pm), we are seeing a lot more of these ocean-going tin cans than normal, and that’s before you discover Das Boot is available to watch on Amazon Prime.

Channel 5’s doc arrives with perfect timing, allowing the millions enthralled by by the Scotland-set Vigil to have a look at the real thing, as represented by HMS Trenchant.

The first thing to notice is how cramped and claustrophobic Trenchant is. Since it would have been almost impossible to film a drama on a real boat, Vigil had its own specially constructed set.

The other thing Vigil misses, perhaps because it is more concerned with unmasking a killer than being a fly on the wall doc, is the obsession with food on submarines.

At the start we see the crew packing enough provisions for a four month mission, including 10,000 tea bags and 600 litres of milk. With the pressures of intense working, being away from home, and there being little else to do, good grub is vital to morale says the captain, and the queue for Saturday steak night is almost as long as the boat.

Another matter deemed vitally important is trying to keep the place as clean as possible to avoid any outbreak of illness. The X-O (executive officer), of Trenchant, Jim Dent, says “DAV” – diarrhoea and vomiting everything has an acronym down here – comes in two stages. The first is when you are afraid you might die, the second is the fear you won’t.

Submarine may be a conventional documentary in many ways, but at times it packs the punch of a thriller. All those weeks below the waves are not without incident, and some scenes are watch-through-the-fingers tense, even more so given that the risk is real. The second instalment airs on Monday, September 20.

Seeing Alma’s Not Normal (BBC2, Monday, 10pm) appear in the schedules was a letter to Santa moment for your previewer. When the pilot episode of this bleak as the grave sitcom aired in April 2020 it was obvious the Beeb should send Sophie Willan, who writes and stars in the title role, off to make a series.

A certain pandemic interrupted of course, but I’m delighted to say Willan and her series is here at last.

The tone is set when Alma, an aspiring actress, tells us about growing up with a mum who was a heroin addict. “Think the baby from Trainspotting if she’d lived.” Fortunately, Alma’s grandma Joan (Lorraine Ashbourne) was still around to look after her while mother Lin (Siobahn Finneran) tried to sort herself out. She is still trying.

Alma’s Not Normal has a terrifically strong female cast and the writing is scalpel sharp, not just about family relationships but about being unemployed, mental illness, and class, that perennial sitcom favourite.

The Bafta-winning pilot, written after Willan won the Caroline Aherne Bursary, is showing again as the first of a six-part series. The music is pretty cool too, with The Velvet Underground and Ian Dury among those making an appearance on the soundtrack.

Sam Jones, the interviewer on John Goodman: Off Camera (Sky Arts, free to view, Thursday, 10pm) has a talent for bringing in the big names to sit down with him, among them Ed Norton and Jeff Bridges. Maybe it’s because, as a photographer and director, he is in the business that his guests seem more relaxed than they might be with a journalist they’ve never met before. Whatever, he gets results.

John Goodman can be a daunting interviewee (been there, got the tape), but with Jones he is open and relaxed from the start. As the pair sit in a tiny room just a small table separating them, their encounter filmed in swish black and white, the star of Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, and Roseanne recounts his life, times and regrets.

Goodman has had a long career across stage, television and the movies. While he speaks well about the craft of acting (warning: there is quite a bit of this), it is when he is talking about his life, and struggles with alcoholism, that the interview becomes enthralling. It is all here, from being brought up by a single mother in Missouri (his father died a month before Goodman’s second birthday) to his early scrabbles for parts in New York, to working with the Coens, and going back to Roseanne after decades away.

The 69-year-old is thankful for what he has and works hard at keeping on an even keel. “Now I’ve got 10-15 years left I’m all about self-preservation,” he laughs. Amen to that.