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

Published: 3 September 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. Friday 4 September 2026 runs 23 programmes through the day, opening on archive serials and older features before daytime settles into more of the same. The evening builds towards a Hammer horror double bill: Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club introduces Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, the 1971 Hammer take on the Stevenson story, at 9:20pm, and Curse of Frankenstein, the 1957 film that made stars of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, closes the night from 11:30pm. Ahead of that there’s an unbroken run of archive drama, Rumpole of the Bailey, Z-Cars and Public Eye, from 6pm to 8pm, with no split films to untangle anywhere tonight. Full breakdown below.

Talking Pictures TV Schedule: Friday 4 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Talking Pictures TV schedule for Friday 4 September 2026, on Freeview 82.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Talking Pictures TV today

Friday’s schedule opens with Battle of the Coral Sea at 1:30am, a 1959 submarine thriller with Cliff Robertson secretly photographing Japanese aircraft carriers. The Pale Faced Girl, a Dublin courtship story from director Francis Searle, follows at 3:20am, then 1964 in Church Street Market at 3:50am, one of the channel’s own archive-footage shorts. Two archive series carry the night towards dawn: Burke’s Law (series 2, episode 4) at 4am and The Man from U.N.C.L.E (series 1, episode 14) at 5am.

Breakfast holds St. Benny the Dip at 6am, Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1951 comedy about three con men posing as priests, then Be My Guest from 7:40am, a 1965 pop-scene comedy with Steve Marriott and David Hemmings. The morning’s main feature is Mohawk at 9:20am, a 1956 adventure with Scott Brady, ahead of the 1959 sci-fi Behemoth the Seamonster from 11am.

The afternoon opens on The Man Who Stayed Alive at 12:30pm, then The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (series 5, episode 9) at 1:05pm and The Adventures of Robin Hood (series 1, episode 26) at 2:15pm. Ambush In Leopard Street, a 1962 crime thriller, takes 2:50pm ahead of two more archive series, That’s My Boy (series 2, episode 4) at 4pm and The Cheaters (series 1, episode 27) at 4:30pm. Early evening belongs to A Family At War (series 2, episode 5) from 5pm, then Rumpole of the Bailey opens primetime at 6pm — see below.

Talking Pictures TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Talking Pictures TV primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 4 September 2026.

Rumpole of the Bailey — Talking Pictures TV, 6pm

Rumpole of the Bailey opens the evening at 6pm with “Rumpole and the Learned Friends” (series 1, episode 5). Leo McKern’s barrister takes on a defence client who claims a police officer fitted him up, and the case soon puts Rumpole’s own conduct under scrutiny too. Peggy Thorpe-Bates and Joanna Van Gyseghem also star.

Z-Cars — Talking Pictures TV, 7pm

At 7pm, Z-Cars follows with “Whistle and Come Home” (series 13, episode 83). PCs Lynch and Graham head out to investigate a burglary at Caldwell’s shop, while DC Hicks chases a separate lead of his own and worries Barlow is about to pull rank and claim it. Tony Beckley and Alfred Burke star.

Public Eye — Talking Pictures TV, 8pm

The 8pm hour belongs to Public Eye and “The Man Who Said Sorry” (series 6, episode 5). An oddly dressed stranger visits private investigator Frank Marker, insisting he’s the only man who can help him. Alfred Burke plays Marker, with Paul Rogers and Ray Smith.

Cellar Club with Caroline Munro — Talking Pictures TV, 9pm

Cellar Club with Caroline Munro opens the night’s horror at 9pm, with Munro introducing the double bill’s first film ahead of it starting twenty minutes later.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde — Talking Pictures TV, 9:20pm

At 9:20pm, it’s Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Hammer’s 1971 twist on the Stevenson story. Ralph Bates plays a Victorian scientist whose experimental serum turns him into a murderous woman, played by Martine Beswick; Roy Ward Baker directs, and Gerald Sim also stars.

Cellar Club with Caroline Munro — Talking Pictures TV, 11:15pm

A shorter Cellar Club slot returns at 11:15pm, with Munro trailing next week’s film rather than introducing a second feature tonight.

Curse of Frankenstein — Talking Pictures TV, 11:30pm

Curse of Frankenstein closes the night from 11:30pm. Terence Fisher’s 1957 film, with Peter Cushing as the Baron and Christopher Lee as his creation, was Hammer’s first colour horror picture and the one that launched the studio’s run of gothic remakes. Hazel Court and Robert Urquhart also star.

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?

Tonight runs as one unbroken sequence with no split films. Rumpole of the Bailey, Z-Cars and Public Eye take 6pm, 7pm and 8pm, then Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club opens a Hammer horror double bill at 9pm: Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971, Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick) from 9:20pm, followed by Curse of Frankenstein (1957, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee) from 11:30pm. Check the schedule table above for the full day’s listings.

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.

Curse of Frankenstein is the one to catch tonight, from 11:30pm. It’s the film that turned Hammer into a horror factory: Terence Fisher shot it in colour on a modest budget, and the pairing of Peter Cushing’s cold-blooded Baron with Christopher Lee’s mute, disfigured creation set the template the studio worked for the next two decades. Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, from 9:20pm, is the stranger companion piece, a 1971 spin on the Stevenson story that swaps the usual monster for Martine Beswick playing Ralph Bates’s own murderous alter ego. Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club links the two, in keeping with the channel’s habit of dressing up its archive with a bit of ceremony.

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