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

Published: 22 August 2026

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. Sunday 23 August 2026 runs 25 programmes through the day, every one of them a different broadcast. The evening opens with John Mills in a 1951 thriller, swings into a rarely-aired BBC single play with a time-travel premise, then closes out with a bawdy 1970s comedy and a chart-music rundown. Full breakdown below.

Talking Pictures TV Schedule: Sunday 23 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Talking Pictures TV schedule for Sunday 23 August 2026, on Freeview 82.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Talking Pictures TV today

Sunday’s overnight run opens at 12:20am with Sin in the Suburbs, followed by the documentary Nicole Kidman: Eyes Wide Open at 2:10am and the archive curio A Hole Lot of Trouble at 3:15am. The ten-minute short Look At Life Towns By Design fills 3:50am ahead of an episode of the anthology chiller One Step Beyond at 4am (series 1, episode 19), Tales of Frankenstein at 4:35am, the regional documentary The Midlands in the 1960s at 5:10am and Honey West at 5:30am (series 1, episode 26).

Breakfast belongs to the film The Naked Hills from 6am, before The Lucy Show at 7:30am (series 5, episode 1), Sherlock Holmes at 8am (series 1, episode 1) and Links of Justice at 8:35am carry the schedule through to mid-morning.

Child in the House runs from 9:55am, then the short Look At Life All Their Own Work fills 11:35am ahead of a Batman episode at 11:45am (series 3, episode 18).

Lord Jim, Richard Brooks’ 1965 adventure with Peter O’Toole, takes the whole lunchtime slot from 12:20pm and runs three hours. The short Look At Life Holidays With Pay follows at 3:20pm, then a For the Love of Ada episode at 3:30pm (series 2, episode 4) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E at 4pm (series 2, episode 6) lead into early evening. The Footage Detectives closes out the afternoon at 5pm (series 1, episode 241), before Mr Denning Drives North takes the 6pm slot.

Talking Pictures TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Talking Pictures TV primetime line-up for tonight, Sunday 23 August 2026.

Mr Denning Drives North — Talking Pictures TV, 6pm

Anthony Kimmins’ 1951 thriller opens the evening. John Mills plays an aircraft engineer whose confrontation with his daughter’s boyfriend turns fatal, and the film follows his increasingly desperate attempt to cover it up. Phyllis Calvert and Sam Wanamaker co-star in a tightly wound British picture that plays closer to a Hitchcock plot than most of the channel’s Sunday teatime fare.

Look At Life And So To Bed — Talking Pictures TV, 7:50pm

A ten-minute Look At Life short bridges the gap before the night’s main event.

Play For Today: The Flipside of Dominick Hide — Talking Pictures TV, 8pm

The pick of the night. Alan Gibson’s 1980 Play For Today single drama sends Peter Firth’s time-travelling researcher back from 2130 to observe 1980s London, where he falls for a Portobello Road shop owner played by Caroline Langrishe and uncovers an unexpected family connection along the way. It’s a rare outing for a strand the BBC has mostly left in the archive, and a change of pace from the channel’s usual film-led evening.

Confessions from a Holiday Camp — Talking Pictures TV, 9:50pm

Norman Cohen’s 1977 comedy sends Robin Askwith and Anthony Booth back to the seaside for another instalment in the Confessions series, playing hapless entertainment staff at a holiday camp. Bill Maynard and Linda Hayden round out a cast built for innuendo rather than subtlety.

The Heritage Chart Show with Mike Read — Talking Pictures TV, 11:35pm

Mike Read closes the night with archive chart performances and interviews (series 1, episode 232).

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?

Mr Denning Drives North opens the evening at 6pm, a tightly plotted 1951 thriller starring John Mills and Phyllis Calvert. A short Look At Life bridges 7:50pm, then Play For Today: The Flipside of Dominick Hide, a 1980 BBC single play with Peter Firth as a time-travelling visitor to 1980s London, takes the 8pm hour. Confessions from a Holiday Camp, Norman Cohen’s 1977 comedy with Robin Askwith and Anthony Booth, runs from 9:50pm, and The Heritage Chart Show with Mike Read closes out the night at 11:35pm.

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 stands in for a +1 service, with recent broadcasts available to catch up 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 that still does something none of the bigger channels bother with. Old films and archive television get a proper home here instead of the odd graveyard slot. It won’t be for everyone, and some evenings the schedule reads like a lucky dip. That’s also the appeal.

Play For Today: The Flipside of Dominick Hide is the one to catch tonight, from 8pm. It’s an unusual choice for a channel built mostly on features — a single BBC drama rather than a film — but Peter Firth’s time-travelling lead and its rare outing outside the archive make it the more interesting hour than either of tonight’s two films. Confessions from a Holiday Camp at 9:50pm is the safer bet if broad comedy is what you’re after, and either way the night wraps with Mike Read’s chart rundown just after 11:30pm.

Related: Film4 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week