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, Friday 21 August 2026, Rick Stein’s Cornish Christmas opens primetime at 6pm, a Christmas special oddly parked four months early, before Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing takes the 7pm slot and Would I Lie To You? runs twice back to back at 7:40pm and 8:20pm. QI XL fills the 9pm hour, and Magnum P.I. closes the night with a double bill at 10pm and 11pm. Channel numbers are further down the page.

Dave Schedule: Friday 21 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Dave schedule for Friday 21 August 2026, on Freeview 19.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Dave today

Friday’s Dave day opens with a topical Mock the Week special at midnight, hosts Hugh Dennis and Dara O Briain chairing a panel of James Acaster, Angela Barnes, Ed Gamble, Milton Jones and Tez Ilyas fresh from the week’s headlines. Two archive Would I Lie To You? editions follow, Clare Balding, Rhod Gilbert, Nick Grimshaw and Rob Delaney at 12:40am and Richard Hammond, Sean Lock, Trevor Noah and Judy Murray at 1:20am, Rob Brydon hosting both. Hit Point repeats its second episode at 2am, Leo caught between mounting lies and a dangerous double life, 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, the department scrambling to run a fundraising gala without Leslie, before teleshopping fills the gap through to Top Gear’s return at 7:20am, Clarkson and company attempting a Channel crossing in amphibious cars.

Border Force America’s Gatekeepers doubles up from 8:15am: a marijuana haul hidden inside a shipment of mattresses and a mother and daughter caught smoking meth in the first hour, then a murder suspect apprehended at the border and more than 80kg of cocaine found inside a lorry in the second. Rick Stein’s Cornwall gets its first outing of the day from 10:20am, Rick tracking down novelist Patrick Gale and the wartime poet Charles Causley before cooking sea bass, then filming a German crew shooting a Cornish romance and discovering a mushroom said to sharpen the mind. Both episodes repeat again in the early evening. A new Yukon Gold arrives at 11:20am, Nika left short-handed when her brother quits and Big Al gambling his health on one last big payday. Two more Top Gear episodes from 12:20pm see Clarkson and Hammond design a car for pensioners, then Clarkson and May race a boat against a car up the New Zealand coast. Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing gets its first airing of the day at 2:20pm, Paul and Bob casting off in the Lake District, somewhere Bob has felt an attachment to since he was a teenager. Guy Martin: Proper Jobs at 3pm follows a family firm that rescues broken-down lorries, and Hairy Bikers’ Best of British closes the afternoon at 4pm with a clam chowder built around the culinary ties between Britain and America. The evening schedule below begins from there.

Dave tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Dave primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 21 August 2026.

Rick Stein’s Cornish Christmas — Dave, 6pm

A genuine oddity to open the evening: a Christmas special (series 1, episode 1) landing in the last week of August. Stein joins in the wassailing, roasts a goose and samples local drink while tracing how Cornwall marks the season. Whatever the scheduling logic, watching it on a warm Friday in August is a strange experience.

Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing — Dave, 7pm

Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer’s trip (series 4, episode 3) heads to the Lake District, a place with personal history for Bob, who first holidayed there as a teenager back in the 1970s. It’s the calmest hour on the schedule, and repeats the episode shown earlier this afternoon.

Would I Lie To You? — Dave, 7:40pm

First of tonight’s double: Gaby Roslin and Tinchy Stryder join Jack Dee and Romesh Ranganathan on the guest sofa, facing off against team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack, with Rob Brydon presiding over the fact-or-fiction guessing game as usual (series 9, episode 7).

Would I Lie To You? — Dave, 8:20pm

The second edition (series 9, episode 6) puts Doon Mackichan and Alex Brooker on one side, Henning Wehn and Ben Miller on the other, alongside the regular team captains. Another dependable half-hour from a format that rarely misses.

QI XL — Dave, 9pm

This week’s extended cut of QI (series 22, episode 8, “Viral”) gathers Rhod Gilbert, Ignacio Lopez and Zoe Lyons around Sandi Toksvig and Alan Davies for a tour of the internet’s stranger corners. The longer XL edit gives the panel more room to wander than the nightly version gets, and it’s the strongest booking of Dave’s night.

Magnum P.I. — Dave, 10pm

Jay Hernandez leads the 2018 reboot into episode 10, Thomas helping a woman targeted by armed robbers after an illegal poker game meant to settle a mob debt goes wrong. The feed marks this “New”, but it’s simply the run continuing in order, not a premiere.

Magnum P.I. — Dave, 11pm

Episode 11 follows straight after: Thomas tracks down a woman’s fugitive Russian cousin, while Higgins and Kumu get pulled dangerously close to the case themselves. Also flagged “New” in error: this is the same first series as the 10pm episode, not a second launch.

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, Friday 21 August 2026: Rick Stein’s Cornish Christmas opens the evening at 6pm, then Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing at 7pm and two rounds of Would I Lie To You? at 7:40pm and 8:20pm. QI XL takes the 9pm slot, and Magnum P.I. closes the night with a double bill at 10pm and 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

Friday’s schedule runs almost entirely on repeats, but they’re timed sensibly. The Rick Stein’s Cornwall pair shown at 10:20am and 10:50am reappears unchanged at 5pm and 5:30pm, and Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing’s 2:20pm trip to the Lake District repeats again at 7pm. Rick Stein’s Cornish Christmas at 6pm is the odd one out: a genuine Christmas special, four months ahead of schedule.

The 7:40pm hour is where the night earns its keep. Two fresh editions of Would I Lie To You? lead into QI XL’s viral-themed outing at 9pm, Rhod Gilbert, Ignacio Lopez and Zoe Lyons joining Sandi Toksvig and Alan Davies for the night’s best half-hour of comedy. Magnum P.I. closes with two hours of the 2018 reboot, both wrongly flagged “New” by the feed when they’re really just Friday’s pair of episodes from a series already well under way.

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