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

Published: 4 September 2026

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, Saturday 5 September 2026, Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes takes the 6pm slot before Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing repeats at 7pm — the same Lough Corrib episode Dave showed at 2:20pm this afternoon. Would I Lie to You? then runs two archive episodes back to back at 7:40pm, with Steve Davis, Craig Parkinson, Sara Pascoe and Claudia Winkleman on the panel, and 8:20pm, with Nikki Fox, Miles Jupp, Nish Kumar and Joe Lycett — a different current-series line-up is airing over on BBC One at 9pm the same night. QI XL takes the 9pm slot, and two episodes of Magnum P.I. see out primetime at 10pm and 11pm. There’s no Taskmaster on Dave tonight at all, a break from the rest of the week. Channel numbers are further down the page.

Dave Schedule: Saturday 5 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Dave schedule for Saturday 5 September 2026, on Freeview 19.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Dave today

Friday’s overnight hours open with Mock the Week at midnight (series 17, episode 3), then two archive Would I Lie to You? repeats before Hit Point takes its own slot at 2am (series 1, episode 4). Richard Osman’s House of Games and Judge Romesh carry the schedule to 4am, when teleshopping takes over until Top Gear opens the proper broadcast day at 7:25am, followed by two episodes of Border Force: America’s Gatekeepers.

Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes gets its first daytime showing at 10:20am, then Yukon Gold and two Top Gear repeats fill the late morning and early afternoon. Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing has its own daytime showing at 2:20pm — the same Lough Corrib episode that returns at 7pm — before Speed with Guy Martin and Hairy Bikers’ Best of British see out the afternoon. Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes repeats that same episode at 5pm, before a second, different episode opens the early evening proper at 6pm, leading into tonight’s line-up.

Dave tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Dave primetime line-up for tonight, Saturday 5 September 2026.

Pete Wicks: For Dogs’ Sake — Dave, 6pm

Wicks meets a puppy whose leg is broken in several places, then a young Doberman kept behind quarantine wire for almost her entire life. He is a more thoughtful presenter than the reality-telly CV suggests.

Gavin and Stacey — Dave, from 7pm

Three episodes back to back from series two: Gavin starting work in Cardiff, Smithy adjusting badly to his best friend moving away, Nessa heading for Essex, and a beer and curry night at Pam and Mick’s. Still the warmest sitcom of its decade.

I’m Alan Partridge — Dave, from 9pm

Three more, and the run picks the good ones. Alan attempts every Bond film back to back, gets jealous of Michael’s new friend, lies to his girlfriend about Bono, and finally sees his book pulped at Lynn’s baptism.

Not Going Out Christmas Special — Dave, 10:55pm

Lee and Lucy running a school fundraiser variety show with no acts worth booking. September is an eccentric time to air it.

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, Taskmaster: 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. Dave’s daytime sitcom rotation runs deep too, with long-running BBC and Channel 4 comedies filling the hours between panel shows.

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?

Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes opens the early evening at 6pm, then Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing takes the 7pm slot — a repeat of the same episode shown at 2:20pm. Would I Lie to You? runs two archive episodes back to back at 7:40pm, with Steve Davis, Craig Parkinson, Sara Pascoe and Claudia Winkleman, and 8:20pm, with Nikki Fox, Miles Jupp, Nish Kumar and Joe Lycett — a different, current line-up airs on BBC One at 9pm the same night. QI XL takes the 9pm hour, and Magnum P.I. closes out primetime with two episodes at 10pm and 11pm. There’s no Taskmaster on Dave tonight.

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

Saturday’s evening leans on what’s already aired earlier in the day: the 7pm Gone Fishing repeats 2:20pm, and the two Would I Lie to You? hours at 7:40pm and 8:20pm are archive episodes with two different panels rather than the current run — that’s over on BBC One at 9pm the same night, if that’s what you’re after. None of that makes for bad viewing, but nobody switching on expecting the new series finds it here.

The one thing worth flagging plainly: there’s no Taskmaster on Dave at all tonight, a break from the rest of the week’s pattern. The back-to-back Magnum P.I. hour at 10pm and 11pm is the most solid unrepeated stretch Dave has to offer this evening, ahead of QI XL at 9pm.

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