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

Talking Pictures TV is the independent, family-run channel built almost entirely on one man’s private film collection. Noel Cronin spent decades buying up the rights to older British and Hollywood titles through his company Renown Pictures, and in May 2015 he and his daughter, Sarah Cronin-Stanley, turned that archive into a television channel. Eleven years on, nobody else on British free-to-air is attempting anything like it. Thursday 6 August 2026 opens overnight with 1952 mining drama The Brave Don’t Cry, runs Fred Zinnemann’s Best Picture winner From Here to Eternity mid-afternoon, then closes the evening with Hammer horror Horror of Frankenstein at 9:20pm and a biographical drama about Arthur Conan Doyle at 11:20pm. Channel numbers are in the table further down.

Talking Pictures TV Schedule: Thursday 6 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Talking Pictures TV schedule for Thursday 6 August 2026, on Freeview 82.

What’s on Talking Pictures TV today

Thursday’s small hours open with The Brave Don’t Cry at 12:10am, Philip Leacock’s 1952 drama loosely based on a real Scottish mining disaster, with John Gregson, Meg Buchanan and John Rae caught up in a cave-in that seals a work crew underground. The Night Visitor follows at 2am, a 1971 crime chiller with Max von Sydow as an escaped asylum inmate out for revenge, Trevor Howard and Liv Ullmann alongside him and a score from Henry Mancini. Stagecoach West rounds off the graveyard slot at 4am (series 1, episode 21), The Root of Evil, with Wayne Rogers and Robert Bray running a stagecoach line through Old West trouble.

Railway Murders takes the 5am slot (series 1, episode 3), a 2021 documentary reconstruction of the 1895 murder of Detective Sergeant Robert Kidd, killed in the line of duty. Cotton Queen runs from 6am, Bernard Vorhaus’s 1937 comedy about rival cotton mill owners whose families end up entangled, starring Will Fyffe, Stanley Holloway and Jimmy Hanley. Law and Disorder fills the 7:40am slot, a 1940 comedy-crime picture with Alastair Sim as a young solicitor who makes a habit of getting accused thugs acquitted, Barry K. Barnes and Diana Churchill also starring.

The History of Mr Polly takes the late morning at 9:10am, Anthony Pelissier’s 1949 adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel, with John Mills as a draper who sinks an inheritance into two doomed ventures, Betty Ann Davies and Megs Jenkins also featured. The Second Woman follows at 11:10am, a 1950 mystery in which an architect’s fiancee dies in a car crash the night before their wedding, starring Betsy Drake, Robert Young and John Sutton. The Adventures of Sir Lancelot airs at 1pm (series 1, episode 22), Double Identity, with William Russell’s Sir Richard waylaid en route to his own wedding.

From Here to Eternity takes the early afternoon slot at 1:35pm, Fred Zinnemann’s 1953 Best Picture winner starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift and Deborah Kerr at a US Army base in Hawaii in the run-up to Pearl Harbor. Odd Man Out closes out the afternoon at 3:55pm, Carol Reed’s 1947 thriller with James Mason as an organisation leader who has escaped from prison and remains on the run, Robert Newton and Fay Compton also starring, running through to the early evening.

Talking Pictures TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Talking Pictures TV primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 6 August 2026.

Strange But True? — Talking Pictures TV, 6:20pm

Michael Aspel presents this 1996 double bill (series 1, episode 26), pairing a look at near-death experiences with a visit to RAF Cosford in Shropshire to weigh up the museum’s long-running haunted bomber story.

The Brothers — Talking Pictures TV, 6:55pm

This 1974 episode, An Impossible Debt (series 3, episode 9), has Ann seeking medical help for her insomnia while Brian releases Jill from a financial guarantee and Jennifer falls out badly with Barbara and Mary. Hilary Tindall, Jean Anderson and Gabrielle Drake carry the haulage-firm saga through its usual family friction.

Mark Saber — Talking Pictures TV, 8pm

A Lady is Missing, from 1955, has Donald Gray’s one-armed detective hired by Eddy Crane to trace a missing wife, a case that leads to a hunting lodge in Norfolk. Robert Ayres and Michael Balfour co-star in this half-hour instalment of the crime series.

The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club — Talking Pictures TV, 8:30pm

Bernard Manning hosts this 1974 variety instalment (series 2, episode 3) from the fictional working men’s club, introducing rock and roll act Remember This, comedian Duggie Brown and The Multichords, with Roy Orbison topping the bill.

Horror of Frankenstein — Talking Pictures TV, 9:20pm

Jimmy Sangster’s 1971 Hammer horror plays the Frankenstein story for black comedy as much as scares. Ralph Bates is the young Victor Frankenstein who inherits his father’s title, castle and taste for grisly experiments, with Dennis Price and Kate O’Mara completing the cast.

The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle — Talking Pictures TV, 11:20pm

Cilla Ware directs this 2005 drama tracing Arthur Conan Doyle’s life and the creation of his most famous character. Douglas Henshall plays Conan Doyle, with Brian Cox and Emily Blunt in support, closing out the night at 11:20pm.

What kind of films and shows are on Talking Pictures TV

Vintage British and Hollywood films

The backbone of the schedule is the Renown Pictures library: British films from the 1930s to the 1970s, plus war pictures, adventure films and the odd Hollywood title bought in to fill a gap. Quality swings wildly from one afternoon to the next, which is part of the deal.

Archive TV drama and detective series

Early evenings lean on serialised drama from the 1950s through the 1980s: Z Cars, Public Eye, Hannay and others of that stripe. Much of it isn’t shown anywhere else on British television, and some of it hadn’t been shown anywhere at all for thirty-odd years before this channel dug it out. If you want to know why people are fond of Talking Pictures TV rather than merely tolerant of it, this is the part of the schedule to point at.

Cult strands, B-movies and magazine shows

Late nights get stranger: horror and cult titles through Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club, oddities like Supernatural, imported curios.

How to watch Talking Pictures TV

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Talking Pictures TV across the main UK television platforms:

Talking Pictures TV is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. It doesn’t run a +1 timeshift channel, so these are the only live feeds available.

TPTV Encore catch-up

TPTV Encore is the channel’s own free streaming service, launched in December 2021 and run through a browser at tptvencore.co.uk, with an app on Android. Register an email address and recent broadcasts are usually there for about a week.

The better reason to bother with it is what sits behind the catch-up: a deep archive that includes Southern Television material never given a regular slot on the main channel. Those older titles stay free after the catch-up window shuts, but they carry adverts.

Frequently asked questions

What’s on Talking Pictures TV tonight?

Thursday evening’s early highlights are Strange But True? at 6:20pm and The Brothers at 6:55pm, before Mark Saber takes the 8pm slot and The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club follows at 8:30pm. Horror of Frankenstein, Jimmy Sangster’s 1971 Hammer picture, closes primetime at 9:20pm, and the night ends with 2005 drama The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle at 11:20pm. Times for the rest of the evening are in the schedule table above.

What channel is Talking Pictures TV on?

Freeview 82, Sky 324, Virgin Media 445 and Freesat 306. It’s also on Freely at channel 36. All are free to watch.

Does Talking Pictures TV have a +1 channel?

No. TPTV Encore is the channel’s replacement for a +1 service, letting you catch up with recent broadcasts on demand instead.

Is Talking Pictures TV free to watch?

Yes, entirely. It’s advertising-funded rather than subscription-funded, on the live channel and on TPTV Encore alike.

Verdict

I rate Talking Pictures TV highly for exactly what it is: a small independent operation doing something none of the bigger channels bother with anymore, giving old films and archive television a proper home instead of the odd graveyard slot. It won’t be for everyone. Some evenings the schedule reads like a lucky dip, but that’s also the appeal.

The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle at 11:20pm is the one worth staying up for tonight. Cilla Ware’s 2005 drama casts Douglas Henshall as Conan Doyle alongside Brian Cox and a young Emily Blunt, tracing the writer’s life and the invention of his best-known creation. Tune in earlier for Horror of Frankenstein at 9:20pm if Hammer’s mix of gore and dark comedy suits your evening better.

Related: Film4 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide