Dave TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On Dave Tonight

Dave is UKTV’s comedy and entertainment channel, and almost everything it broadcasts belongs to somebody else. The exception is Red Dwarf, which Dave revived in 2009 with the original cast and has been trading on ever since. UKTV became a wholly owned subsidiary of BBC Studios in 2021 and renamed the channel U&Dave in July 2024, when it pushed the whole portfolio under a single “U” brand. Nobody calls it that. Tonight, Thursday 20 August 2026, the tail end of a four-episode Rick Stein’s Cornwall run closes out the early evening from 6pm, Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing takes the 7:05pm slot, and two editions of Would I Lie To You? follow at 7:40pm and 8:20pm. A new episode of the drama Hit Point lands at 9pm, ahead of Have I Got a Bit More News for You and the opening episode of Taskmaster’s fifth series. Channel numbers are further down the page.

Dave Schedule: Thursday 20 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Dave schedule for Thursday 20 August 2026, on Freeview 19.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Dave today

Thursday’s Dave day opens with a topical Mock the Week special at midnight, Dara O Briain and Hugh Dennis steering the panel through the week’s headlines. Two archive Would I Lie To You? episodes follow: John Cooper Clarke tests the panel’s nerve at 12:40am alongside Greg Davies, Alex Jones and Rick Edwards, then Germaine Greer and Jermaine Jenas share the sofa with Richard Osman and Alan Davies at 1:20am, Rob Brydon hosting both. Sandi Toksvig widens QI XL’s lens onto visionaries at 2am with Cally Beaton, Nish Kumar, Laura Smyth and Alan Davies, and Richard Osman’s House of Games brings on Trevor Nelson, Kimberley Nixon, Des Clarke and Rachel Fairburn at 3am. A single Parks and Recreation follows at 3:30am, Ann weighing up a sperm donor while April covers for Leslie at a public hearing, before teleshopping runs until Top Gear returns at 7:25am with a limo-building challenge built around a lift to the Brit Awards.

Border Force America’s Gatekeepers doubles up from 8:20am: cocaine found inside a refrigerated lorry’s wall and an asylum claim from a Honduran migrant in the first hour, then a meth shipment disguised as concrete and a Haitian migrant’s nine-country journey in the second. Rick Stein’s Cornwall gets its first outing from 10:20am, Rick fishing under sail for oysters and tracing Lostwithiel’s forgotten history, then visiting a Bodmin Moor deer farm for a venison wellington and a pint with comedian Jonny Cowling — both episodes repeat later in the early evening. A new Yukon Gold at 11:20am has Karl drafting in extra help to finish the Dredge Cut while Bernie’s dig at Little Blanche runs into trouble with the old timers. Two more Top Gear episodes from 12:20pm send the trio racing from Wembley to Milan against Amy Macdonald, then swapping steering wheels for a game of rugby before Lewis Hamilton takes the Reasonably Priced Car. Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing gets its first airing of the day at 2:20pm, casting for bream on the Burghley House estate lake, Guy Martin heads to a Hebridean dairy farm for calving season at 3pm, and Hairy Bikers’ Best of British closes the afternoon at 4pm tracing Britain’s colonial influence on its food. The evening schedule below begins from there.

Dave tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Dave primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 20 August 2026.

Rick Stein’s Cornwall — Dave, 6pm & 6:35pm

The Cornwall run reaches its two new instalments of the day at 6pm. Rick takes one of the world’s more scenic ferry crossings, cooks up a vegetarian tart, and traces the Cornish connections of the composer Malcolm Arnold. The 6:35pm episode turns to the women who once worked Cornwall’s mines, a glass of botanical spirits, and a clementine trifle to finish. Both are new; the 5pm and 5:30pm airings beforehand repeated the same double bill Rick showed at 10:20am this morning.

Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing — Dave, 7:05pm

Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer head to the lake at Burghley House, near Stamford, hunting bream in water that rarely gets fished. It’s the second outing for this episode today, having first aired at 2:20pm.

Would I Lie To You? — Dave, 7:40pm & 8:20pm

Two editions of the ninth series run back to back. The 7:40pm panel pairs Rhod Gilbert with Nick Grimshaw, Rob Delaney and Clare Balding, all of them up against the regular pairing of David Mitchell and Lee Mack. At 8:20pm the guests are Sean Lock and Trevor Noah, with Judy Murray and Richard Hammond alongside them. Rob Brydon hosts both.

Hit Point — Dave, 9pm

Series one’s second episode tonight. Leo is sinking deeper into his double life, telling one lie to cover another, getting rid of evidence and paying off an informant to keep it all from unravelling. Carter and Dylan have a separate worry: that whatever Leo feels for Bella is about to bring the whole thing down.

Have I Got a Bit More News for You — Dave, 10pm

Victoria Coren Mitchell hosts the extended edition of the satirical quiz, with Chris McCausland and Janet Street-Porter filling the guest seats opposite team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop.

Taskmaster — Dave, 11pm

Series five opens with “Dignity Intact”, in which Greg Davies sets his tasks for Bob Mortimer, Sally Phillips, Nish Kumar, Mark Watson and Aisling Bea. One of them asks for a game of basketball played with no use of the hands.

What kind of shows are on Dave

Panel shows and comedy institutions

This is the channel’s whole personality. Would I Lie to You?, QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week when it’s in rotation: two decades of British panel comedy, nearly all of it bought in from the BBC and Channel 4 rather than commissioned here. What Dave adds is the scheduling. Episodes come in blocks you can drop into at any point and leave whenever you like, which is a different way of watching television and, on a weeknight, not the worst one.

Sitcoms: archive and revivals

Red Dwarf is the one thing Dave can properly call its own. The channel brought it back in 2009, a decade after the BBC finished with it, and got Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules and Robert Llewellyn all to return. Not Going Out is the other long runner, still in production after more than fifteen years.

Factual entertainment and documentaries

A thinner strand of observational and scripted-reality shows fills the gaps: Highland Cops, Meet the Richardsons and similar, mostly parked in daytime. It’s ballast between the comedy blocks.

How to watch Dave

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Dave across the main UK television platforms:

Dave is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. Channel numbers can vary slightly by region and set-top box, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if these don’t match.

Streaming online

Dave streams live and on demand for free on U, UKTV’s streaming service, at u.co.uk and through the U app on smart TVs, iOS, Android and Amazon Fire TV. U was called UKTV Play until the 2024 rebrand. You need a free account, and there are ad breaks, the same ones you’d sit through on a TV set.

Dave ja vu and sister channels

Dave ja vu is the timeshift channel, running the main schedule an hour behind under a pun that has somehow survived since the 2000s. It’s on Freeview 74, and coverage is patchier than the main signal because it shares broadcast capacity with local TV services in parts of the country. Where reception is thin, the U app is the better fallback for anything you’ve missed.

The rest of the family: U&Drama, U&Yesterday and U&W free to air, with U&Gold, U&Alibi and U&Eden behind pay-TV. All of them sit in the same app.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is Dave on Freeview?

Dave is on Freeview channel 19, and Dave ja vu on 74.

What’s on Dave tonight?

Tonight, Thursday 20 August 2026: the closing two episodes of a four-part Rick Stein’s Cornwall run air at 6pm and 6:35pm, then Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing at 7:05pm and two rounds of Would I Lie To You? at 7:40pm and 8:20pm. A new Hit Point takes the 9pm slot, Have I Got a Bit More News for You follows at 10pm, and Taskmaster opens its fifth series at 11pm.

Who hosts QI and Would I Lie to You??

QI is hosted by Sandi Toksvig, with Alan Davies the permanent panellist since 2003. Would I Lie to You? is hosted by Rob Brydon, with David Mitchell and Lee Mack as team captains since the show began in 2007.

Can I watch Dave online for free?

Yes, free on U at u.co.uk or in the U app. You’ll need an account, and it’s ad-supported.

Verdict

Thursday’s schedule leans on the Rick Stein’s Cornwall run again, but by 6pm it has moved past straight repeats. The 5pm and 5:30pm episodes are the same double bill shown at 10:20am; the 6pm and 6:35pm instalments are new to the day, taking in one of Cornwall’s more scenic ferry crossings and the women who once worked its mines. Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing at 7:05pm is a repeat of the 2:20pm airing, Paul and Bob’s trip to the Burghley House estate lake in search of bream.

Would I Lie To You? gets two fresh editions rather than archive ones tonight, Clare Balding and Rhod Gilbert’s outing at 7:40pm followed by Richard Hammond and Sean Lock’s at 8:20pm. Hit Point’s second episode raises the stakes on Leo’s double life at 9pm, Victoria Coren Mitchell hosts an extended Have I Got a Bit More News for You at 10pm, and Taskmaster opens its fifth series at 11pm with Aisling Bea, Bob Mortimer, Mark Watson, Nish Kumar and Sally Phillips taking on Greg Davies’ tasks, including an attempt at basketball with no hands.

Related: Freeview Channel Guide | Drama TV Guide | Films on TV This Week