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

Published: 7 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, Tuesday 8 September 2026, Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes closes the early evening at 6pm, then Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing at 7pm leads into two episodes of Would I Lie To You? from 7:40pm. Have I Got a Bit More News for You takes 9pm, QI XL follows at 10pm, and 8 Out of 10 Cats and Mock the Week close out the night. Channel numbers are further down the page.

Dave Schedule: Tuesday 8 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Dave schedule for Tuesday 8 September 2026, on Freeview 19.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Dave today

Overnight opens with Mock the Week at midnight, then two Would I Lie To You? episodes from 12:40am and QI XL at 2am, before Dave Gorman: Modern Life Is Goodish closes out the small hours ahead of Teleshopping from 4am to half past seven.

Pointless opens the broadcast day proper at 7:25am, then two Border Force: America’s Gatekeepers episodes lead into two Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes repeats through the late morning. Two Top Gear episodes fill the early afternoon, then Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Speed with Guy Martin and Hairy Bikers’ Best of British carry into early evening, where two further Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes episodes lead into tonight’s line-up.

Dave tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Dave primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 8 September 2026.

Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes — Dave, 6pm

Rick Stein closes out early evening with the sixth leg of a Mediterranean tour, the format he’s built a career on: turn up in a coastal town, talk to the people who catch and cook the local produce, then make something simple with it himself. It’s slower and gentler than most of what surrounds it on Dave, food-and-travel rather than comedy.

Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing — Dave, 7pm

Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse head out with rods again for the second episode of series 6, a show that began as a low-key fishing trip between two comedians recovering from serious heart conditions and grew into one of the gentlest hits on British television. The fishing is almost incidental; it’s really two old friends talking.

Would I Lie To You? — Dave, 7:40pm

Rob Brydon hosts the ninth episode of series 11, with David Mitchell and Lee Mack captaining their teams as usual, working out which outlandish claims from that week’s guests are true and which are elaborate fabrications. It’s one of the format’s most durable tricks: even regular viewers rarely call it right.

Would I Lie To You? — Dave, 8:20pm

A second helping follows straight on, this time from series 12, with the same format and the same three familiar faces running the show. Stacking two episodes back to back is standard practice for Dave rather than anything special about tonight, but it’s exactly the scheduling habit that keeps the format in near-permanent rotation.

Have I Got a Bit More News for You — Dave, 9pm

The extended cut of that week’s Have I Got News For You adds roughly ten minutes of material trimmed from the original broadcast, with Paul Merton and Ian Hislop’s regular teams working through the week’s political and media stories under a rotating guest host. Series 68 puts this a long way into a run that’s been going since 1990.

QI XL — Dave, 10pm

The extended version of QI runs a full hour rather than the broadcast half-hour, giving Sandi Toksvig and the panel more room to wander off-topic, which is usually where the best answers turn up anyway. Alan Davies remains the one constant panellist since the show began in 2003, still getting the obvious answer wrong on cue.

8 Out of 10 Cats — Dave, 11pm

The first episode of series 18 sees Jimmy Carr working through newspaper surveys and public opinion polls with two teams of comedians, mining the gap between what people actually think and what sounds reasonable said out loud. It’s an older run, from when Sean Lock and Jon Richardson were still the regular team captains.

Mock the Week — Dave, 11:50pm

Dara Ó Briain closes out the night with the eighth episode of series 17, putting a rotating line-up of stand-ups through the improvised games and topical rounds that made the format one of BBC Two’s longest-running comedy exports before it ended in 2022. It’s fast, occasionally cruel, and rarely dull.

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 closes the early evening at 6pm, then Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing at 7pm leads into two Would I Lie To You? episodes from 7:40pm. Have I Got a Bit More News for You follows at 9pm, QI XL at 10pm, and 8 Out of 10 Cats and Mock the Week close out the night.

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

Tonight is Dave’s usual shape: gentler factual programming into panel shows. Rick Stein and Mortimer & Whitehouse’s travel and fishing hours lead into two Would I Lie To You? episodes back to back, then Have I Got a Bit More News for You and QI XL carry the back half of primetime, with QI XL still the strongest booking of the night whatever the topic.

8 Out of 10 Cats and Mock the Week close things out, familiar panel-show reruns rather than anything built specifically around tonight.

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