TV Guide UK Tonight: Fri 10 Apr 2026 – Big Cats 24/7 Finale, Beyond Paradise & First Dates

Updated: 12 April 2026

Friday night has a clear standout this week. Big Cats 24/7 ends its series on BBC Two at 9pm, and after six months in the Kalahari with these animals, the finale has earned its billing. Elsewhere, Beyond Paradise returns to BBC One at 8pm with a murder mystery involving Dark Morris dancing, The Young Offenders continues its screwball Cork crime spree at 9.30pm, and First Dates kicks off its 25th series at 10pm with Fred Sirieix back behind the bar. The Masters Round 2 is at Augusta from 2pm, and West Ham v Wolves kicks off at 8pm on Sky Sports.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• Big Cats 24/7 ⭐ — BBC Two, 9pm — Series finale. Wild dogs, a buffalo migration, and a cheetah cub still learning the basics. Don’t miss it
• Beyond Paradise — BBC One, 8pm — Dark Morris dancing murder. Humphrey on reliably excellent form
• The Young Offenders — BBC One, 9.30pm — Conor and Jock go full gangster. It won’t go well
• First Dates — C4, 10pm — Series 25. The yurt coincidence alone is worth the hour
• The Assembly — ITV1, 10pm — Nicola Sturgeon goes emotional. Apparently
• The Masters — Sky Sports, 2pm — Round 2 at Augusta

Early Evening

Gardening Night – BBC Two, 7pm

BBC Two hands the entire evening over to gardens and the people who look after them, starting at 7pm. Greatest Gardens opens proceedings with Diarmuid Gavin, Carol Klein, and Prue Leith passing judgement on three top gardens in Northern Ireland. At 7.30pm, Beechgrove Garden in Aberdeenshire has Brian Cunningham running through veg plot ideas and home-made compost tips. Then at 8pm, Gardeners’ World sees Frances Tophill back at Damson Farm in Somerset looking at ways to support garden birds, while Joe Swift finds a Cornish gardener who refuses to let wild coastal weather get in the way of a decent planting scheme. Three hours of green-fingered content, which is either a treat or a lot depending on your relationship with soil. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Extraordinary Portraits with Bill Bailey – BBC One, 7.30pm

Lindsay McKenna runs a self-funded rescue centre for exotic animals and has strong opinions about how she’d like to be painted — specifically, not front and centre, and ideally with as many animals as possible and herself somewhere in the background. Which creates an obvious tension for a programme that is, by definition, a portrait of her. The artist who gets the brief might surprise you: it’s Ricky Wilson, frontman of the Kaiser Chiefs, who turns out to have trained as an art teacher before the band took off. The result is apparently spectacular. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Unreported World – C4, 7.30pm

Journalist Anja Popp heads to northern Nigeria to report on Kannywood — the Hausa-language film industry operating out of a region governed by strict Sharia law. The women who work in it face a level of scrutiny and censorship that would end most careers before they started. Director Mansurah Isah agonises over a single childbirth scene that risks being cut for showing too much; another actress was forced to quit entirely after a social media post was deemed inappropriate. A rising star has lost her family’s support just for choosing the job. It’s the kind of story Unreported World does well: something genuinely important that wouldn’t otherwise make it onto a Friday night schedule. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.

Prime Time

Beyond Paradise – BBC One, 8pm

Shipton Abbott has a Dark Morris tradition, and if you’re not familiar with the form — think less village fete, more Black Sabbath. Gothic aesthetic, no flower garlands. The performance Humphrey attends takes a darker turn than even that description suggests when one of the dancers collapses mid-routine. The diagnosis is latex poisoning. The puzzle is working out how anyone in a precisely choreographed performance could have come into contact with the material in the first place. It’s a pleasingly odd premise, and the show handles its West Country eccentricities with enough affection that it never feels like it’s laughing at anyone. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Primark vs John Lewis: Battle of the Brands – C4, 8pm

Turns out the threat to John Lewis’s position on the high street isn’t where most people expected it to come from. Primark’s move into homeware is, as consumer journalist Harry Wallop puts it, like parking tanks on someone’s lawn — and John Lewis’s response was to launch a budget range of its own, which says something about who’s winning. The beauty market angle is worth watching too: why pay £24 for a product when there’s a £3 version sitting on the shelf next to it? The documentary makes the case that what looks like pure price competition is actually a fairly sophisticated bit of brand strategy from both sides. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.

Big Cats 24/7 ⭐ – BBC Two, 9pm (LAST IN SERIES)

Six months in the Kalahari and Okavango Delta, and the crew has earned the right to call this a series finale. The cats have been up against it for a while — Golden Boy, a male lion with a habit of killing cubs, has been circling — but the finale brings fresh threats. Fierce hippos. Giraffes moving at 40mph. Africa’s most effective predator, the wild dog, turning up for what the listings describe, accurately, as a real-life Tom and Jerry. And then there’s Bo, the cheetah cub who has been watching prey for weeks and still hasn’t quite connected the dots on what to do next.

The arrival of a buffalo migration through the Okavango Delta is the episode’s centrepiece, and the confrontation it sets up is everything you’d want from a series closer. This has been the wildlife series of the year and the finale doesn’t let it down. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Have I Got News for You – BBC One, 9pm

Monty Don hosts tonight, which is a pairing that makes more sense than it sounds — he’s good company, and the format doesn’t really require comedy credentials so much as the ability to keep up and stay dry. Guests tonight are comedian Chris McCausland and journalist Helen Lewis. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

The Young Offenders – BBC One, 9.30pm

Conor and Jock have returned from Colombian jail with a new philosophy — something to do with Escobar — and have decided it’s time to become proper criminals rather than chaotic ones. Their plan involves recruiting local headcase Billy Murphy as a henchman, taking two younger versions of themselves under their wing, and teaching them everything they know. This, as anyone who has watched the show before will anticipate, is not a system that produces reliable outcomes. Norma Sheahan as hotshot lawyer Mollie O’Molloy is the series’ best asset when things go wrong, and they go wrong reliably. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Shania Twain Night – BBC Four, 9pm

BBC Four ran a Shania Twain evening nine months ago and apparently it did well enough to justify a return. The lineup tonight runs from a compilation of her archive BBC performances — Man! I Feel Like a Woman!, That Don’t Impress Me Much, the full run — through a 2024 Reel Stories interview in which she sits down with Dermot O’Leary, and then at 10.30pm her 2024 Glastonbury Legends slot on the Pyramid Stage. If you’ve already seen the previous BBC Four Shania evening, this is mostly fresh material. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Sport

The Masters – Round 2 – Sky Sports Main Event/Golf, 2pm

Round two at Augusta, with the cut looming and the leaderboard beginning to sort itself out. Rory McIlroy is defending the title he won in 2025, and another Masters win would put him on a very short list of back-to-back champions. Live on Sky Sports Main Event and Golf from 2pm.

Football: West Ham v Wolves – Sky Sports Main Event, 7.30pm (k/o 8pm)

Premier League. West Ham hosting Wolves at the London Stadium. Coverage from 7.30pm on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League, kick-off 8pm.

Tennis: Monte Carlo Open and Linz Open – Sky Sports, 10am

Coverage of both clay-court events from 10am on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Tennis.

Tour of the Basque Country – TNT Sports 1, 2.30pm

Live cycling from the Basque Country from 2.30pm on TNT Sports 1.

Late Night

First Dates – C4, 10pm (SERIES 25)

Fred Sirieix is back for a 25th series, which by any measure is an impressive run for a format that is essentially two strangers eating food and trying not to say anything they can’t take back. The matchmaking remains impressively specific: yoga teacher Nicole and mindfulness teacher Matthew have never told anyone, but they’ve both always wanted to run sessions in a yurt — and not just any yurt but, it emerges, the same spot where Nicole already holds her classes. In a yurt. Whether that counts as fate or very good research is left to the viewer. Firefighter Abbie and dental nurse Charlotte bond over rum before discovering they have completely different opinions about cats, which may prove more significant. And former detective Kerry and ex-copper Andy share the same birthday, though Kerry’s last visit to the First Dates restaurant ended in what she describes as the worst date of her life. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.

The Assembly – ITV1, 10pm

Nicola Sturgeon is the latest guest to face The Assembly’s panel of young interviewers with learning disabilities — a format that strips away the usual political interview dynamic and tends to get people talking about things they’d normally keep quiet about. According to the former first minister of Scotland, that includes a miscarriage she’d never previously spoken about publicly. “The tears just started to flow and I didn’t think I was going to be able to stop,” she says. The programme wasn’t available for preview, but if previous episodes are any guide, she’ll have said more than she intended, which is rather the point of the format. Catch up via ITVX.

The Claudia Winkleman Show – BBC One, 10.40pm

Tonight’s guests are Ralph Fiennes, Anna Faris, Olivia Cooke, and comedian Michelle de Swarte. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

BBC iPlayer: Big Cats 24/7, Beyond Paradise, Extraordinary Portraits with Bill Bailey, Have I Got News for You, The Young Offenders, Gardening Night (all three programmes), Shania Twain Night
Channel 4 streaming: First Dates, Unreported World, Primark vs John Lewis: Battle of the Brands
ITVX: The Assembly
My5: Building the Impossible with Rob Bell

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Friday 10 April 2026)?

No, EastEnders does not air on Fridays. The soap runs Monday to Thursday only on BBC One. If you’ve missed any episodes from earlier this week, catch up on BBC iPlayer.

What time is Big Cats 24/7 on BBC Two tonight?

Big Cats 24/7 is on BBC Two at 9pm tonight (Friday 10 April 2026). It’s the last in the series, with the Kalahari and Okavango Delta cats facing their biggest threats yet — including wild dogs, a cub-eating male lion, and a buffalo migration building to a major confrontation. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

What time is Beyond Paradise on BBC One tonight?

Beyond Paradise is on BBC One at 8pm tonight (Friday 10 April 2026). Humphrey investigates a Dark Morris dancing incident in which a performer collapses from latex poisoning — the puzzle being how contact with latex was even possible during such a precisely choreographed routine. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

What time is First Dates on Channel 4 tonight?

First Dates Series 25 is on Channel 4 at 10pm tonight (Friday 10 April 2026). Fred Sirieix hosts three couples including yoga teacher Nicole, firefighter Abbie, and former detective Kerry. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.

What time is The Masters golf on TV today?

Round two of The Masters 2026 is live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Golf from 2pm today. Rory McIlroy is defending the title he won in 2025.

What football is on TV tonight (Friday 10 April 2026)?

West Ham v Wolves is on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League tonight, with coverage from 7.30pm and kick-off at 8pm.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Friday 10 April)?

Big Cats 24/7 on BBC Two at 9pm is the standout of the evening — the series finale of the best wildlife series of the year, with a buffalo migration and wild dog confrontation in the Okavango Delta. For drama, Beyond Paradise on BBC One at 8pm is solid Friday entertainment. Late night, First Dates on Channel 4 at 10pm opens its 25th series with some of the most well-matched couples the show has put together. For sport, The Masters Round 2 is on Sky Sports from 2pm.

Final Verdict

Big Cats 24/7 is the pick of the night. The wildlife series has been exceptional throughout and the finale — buffalo migration, wild dogs, a cheetah cub still figuring things out — is a proper send-off for six months of extraordinary filming. Worth staying in for.

Beyond Paradise delivers what it always delivers on a Friday: a murder with an unusual angle, a bit of West Country colour, and Humphrey being confused in a productive way. No complaints.

For those staying up, First Dates at 10pm on Channel 4 opens its 25th series with some of the strongest matching the show has done in years. The yurt story alone is worth the hour.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight Friday | What’s On TV Tonight Thurs 9 Apr 2026 | What’s On TV Tonight Sat 11 Apr 2026