TV Guide UK Tonight: Fri 18 Sept 2026 – Celebrity MasterChef Final, Gardeners’ World & Gogglebox

Updated: 17 September 2026

Friday 18 September 2026. BBC One closes out Celebrity MasterChef with a final billed as the last of the run at 8pm, BBC Two sends Gardeners’ World round three real allotments at the same time, and ITV1 has reshuffled its Friday night — a celebrity Beat the Chasers special has taken the 9pm slot, pushing The Rainmaker back to 10.45pm. Channel 4 launches a new series of George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces at 8pm before Gogglebox at 9pm, and BBC Two closes the night with folk horror Starve Acre at 11pm. EastEnders doesn’t air on Fridays.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• Celebrity MasterChef Final BBC One, 8pm. Billed as the last episode of the run, three finalists cooking for Grace Dent and Giorgio Locatelli.
• Gardeners’ World BBC Two, 8pm. An allotment special, with a cameo from two Emmerdale regulars.
• Gogglebox Channel 4, 9pm. The nation’s sofa critics, back again.
• Starve Acre BBC Two, 11pm. Certificate 15 folk horror with Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark.
• EastEnders is not on tonight — it returns Monday at 7.30pm.

Early Evening

Sister Boniface Mysteries – BBC One, 2pm

An afternoon repeat gives Sister Boniface a properly tangled case: the man at the top of a perfume dynasty, on the verge of naming a successor, turns up impaled in his own study. Practically everyone around him had a motive, from rivals for the top job to family members who didn’t much like the choice he was about to make. Lorna Watson’s gentle sleuth has plenty of suspects and, as ever, an unusually good nose for the truth. Full series on iPlayer.

The Travelling Auctioneers – BBC One, 7.30pm

The regular daytime auction format continues, with dealers scouring attics, antiques centres and house clearances for anything worth taking to sale.

George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces: First Homes – Channel 4, 8pm

A new series opener that tackles the housing crisis from an unusual angle: tiny homes small and mobile enough to dodge planning permission altogether. On Channel 4, Clarke visits a Solihull lecturer and a metalworking apprentice in Shropshire, both building compact, movable homes on their own terms, before heading to “Freeland” in the Netherlands, a district where the usual planning rules simply don’t apply. It’s an upbeat take on a genuinely grim problem, even if nobody quite tackles what these places are worth when the owner wants to sell.

Celebrity MasterChef Final – BBC One, 8pm ⭐

This is the one to watch tonight. Billed as the last episode of the run, the remaining finalists each cook three courses with everything on the line, no safety net and no second chances if a sauce splits at the wrong moment. It’s the toughest possible test of a format that’s spent weeks separating the cooks who can handle pressure from the ones who just enjoy being on telly.

Grace Dent and Giorgio Locatelli have quietly reshaped the judging chemistry this run — both still work daily as a professional critic and chef rather than simply playing a TV role, and it shows in how specific their notes are. Whoever comes out on top follows 2025 winner Ginger Johnson, whose a baked Alaska, a duck à l’orange and a prawn cocktail set a genuinely high bar for whoever’s cooking tonight.

Gardeners’ World – BBC Two, 8pm

An allotment special, timed to a real surge in demand for plots up and down the country. Frances Tophill heads to Exmouth in Devon to see a thriving allotment scene up close, while Joe Swift travels to Manchester to meet Newsround presenter and total allotment newcomer De-Graft Mensah. The nicest hook, though, is closer to soapland: Emmerdale’s Zoë Henry and Jeff Hordley — Rhona Goskirk and Cain Dingle to millions — show off the allotment they actually keep together when the cameras aren’t rolling. BBC Two at 8pm.

Emmerdale – ITV1, 8pm

A moment years in the making: Kim Tate and Sadie King, two of the soap’s most enduring villainesses, have never actually shared the village at the same time until now, and tonight they finally collide — badly. Sadie also has something to drop into the middle of it all, and Lewis gets an answer he doesn’t want. Coronation Street follows at 8.30pm.

Our Great Yorkshire Life – Channel 5, 8pm

On Channel 5, Reuben Owen confronts hovercraft racing at Allerton Park, chef chef Matt Healy is introduced to Razan, who fled Syria and now makes cheese, and the usual mix of Dales characters gets on with rural life.

You’re Killing Me – Drama, 8pm

A live podcast turns into an accidental alibi when the host’s wife apparently takes her own life while he’s broadcasting to thousands of listeners in real time. Allie and Andi aren’t convinced it was suicide, but proving murder is another matter when every plausible suspect was demonstrably on air at the time. On Drama at 8pm.

Doc Martin – ITV3, 8pm

A back-to-back double bill of the Cornish GP dramedy on ITV3, running at 8pm and 9pm, Martin Clunes as prickly as ever against the Portwenn backdrop.

Coronation Street – ITV1, 8.30pm

Kit throws himself into work rather than face what he’s been told about his health, Shona starts to question her own mind, Summer sees Marco again, and Debbie is lying to Ronnie. Four threads in half an hour, which is Corrie operating at its usual rate.

Prime Time

Beat the Chasers: Celebrity Special – ITV1, 9pm

Bradley Walsh puts Russell Kane, Dr Zoe Williams, Kaye Adams, Matt Allwright and Gyles Brandreth up against the Chasers, in the format where the celebrities pick how many Chasers to take on at once and the money moves accordingly. It takes the 9pm hour that The Rainmaker normally occupies, pushing the drama back to 10.45pm.

Gogglebox – Channel 4, 9pm

The pitch hasn’t changed and doesn’t need to: real households on real sofas, including Durham favourites Abbie and Georgia, saying out loud what everyone else is thinking about the week’s television. It’s one of the few things left on TV that still feels like a shared national conversation rather than a hundred separate ones.

The Walking Dead: Dead City – Sky One, 9pm

Old enemies Negan and Maggie have finally called a truce, at least for now, and tonight that fragile peace gets tested by two newcomers, Renata and Luis, whose desperate hunt for methane puts them back in the path of the Croat, the one man neither of them wanted to see again. It’s a smaller, meaner corner of the Walking Dead universe than the flagship show ever was, and better for it.

Would I Lie to You? – BBC One, 9pm

The regular panel format returns, Rob Brydon refereeing as guests try to convince Lee Mack and David Mitchell which of their stories are genuine and which are nonsense. Mrs Brown’s Boys follows at 9.30pm.

Mrs Brown’s Boys – BBC One, 9.30pm

The sitcom keeps its usual Friday half-hour, straight after Would I Lie to You?

Late Night

Live from The Lycett Arms – Channel 4, 10pm

Joe Lycett’s real pub in Hoxton opens for its one live hour of the week again, unscripted and genuinely unpredictable in a schedule where almost nothing else still is.

Piers Morgan: Uncensored – Channel 5, 10pm

The regular current affairs interview and debate slot continues on Channel 5.

Downton Abbey – ITV3, 10pm

A repeat outing for the Crawley family saga, back for anyone who fancies a comfort watch before bed.

Rolling Stones Night – BBC Four, from 10.15pm

With the band’s 25th studio album out this year, BBC Four gives over its late slot to a proper tribute. First up is a 2015 concert film from the small Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, capturing the only occasion the band have ever performed Sticky Fingers, their 1971 record, from beginning to end — the only time they’ve ever done the whole record live. Profile documentaries on Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood round out the night, each getting their own hour to talk through a career most bands would kill for a fraction of.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK – BBC One, 10.40pm

BBC One’s later showing of the current series, for anyone who missed its earlier premiere on BBC Three.

The Rainmaker – ITV1, 10.45pm

Tonight’s episode finds Rudy Baylor getting hold of a genuinely useful piece of information about a “tissue committee” just as fellow nurse Jackie Lemanczyk finds herself drugged and locked in the boot of a colleague’s car. Note the time: it’s 10.45pm tonight, not the usual 9pm, with Beat the Chasers taking the earlier hour. A fortnight into its run and already shunted past the news, which is a strange way to treat a new drama.

Starve Acre – BBC Two, 11pm

Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark play a couple who leave the city for a remote cottage hoping the change will help their son, only to find the land itself has other ideas. Director Daniel Kokotajlo, who drew on his own upbringing in a strict religious household for his acclaimed debut Apostasy, turns the folk-horror dial up slowly rather than all at once, letting dread build out of grief rather than jump scares. Certificate 15, and not one for background viewing.

Sport

Brentford host Chelsea in the Premier League tonight, kicking off at 8pm on Sky Sports, with the Gtech Community Stadium expecting a full house for a genuine London derby. Day two of the BMW PGA Championship is live from Wentworth on Sky Sports Golf from 8.30am, as the world’s best chase the title on one of European golf’s most storied courses. Over in Austria, practice for this weekend’s MotoGP round gets under way from the Red Bull Ring, live on TNT Sports from 12.15pm. Stage three of the Tour of Luxembourg, a short individual time trial around Ettelbruck, also takes place today, though we can’t confirm a UK broadcaster carrying it — worth checking listings if you’re following the race closely.

Tonight by Channel

A channel-by-channel breakdown of Friday 18 September 2026, so you can jump straight to the one you actually watch.

BBC One

• 2pm — Sister Boniface Mysteries
• 7.30pm — The Travelling Auctioneers
• 8pm — Celebrity MasterChef Final
• 9pm — Would I Lie to You?
• 9.30pm — Mrs Brown’s Boys
• 10.40pm — RuPaul’s Drag Race UK

BBC Two

• 8pm — Gardeners’ World
• 11pm — Starve Acre

ITV1

• 8pm — Emmerdale
• 8.30pm — Coronation Street
• 9pm — Beat the Chasers: Celebrity Special
• 10.45pm — The Rainmaker

Channel 4

• 8pm — George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces: First Homes
• 9pm — Gogglebox
• 10pm — Live from The Lycett Arms

Channel 5

• 8pm — Our Great Yorkshire Life
• 10pm — Piers Morgan: Uncensored

ITV3

• 8pm — Doc Martin
• 10pm — Downton Abbey

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

• BBC iPlayer: Celebrity MasterChef, Sister Boniface Mysteries, Gardeners’ World, Would I Lie to You?, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Starve Acre
• ITVX: The Rainmaker, Emmerdale, Coronation Street
• Channel 4 streaming: Gogglebox, Live from The Lycett Arms, George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces: First Homes
• My5: Our Great Yorkshire Life, Piers Morgan: Uncensored

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Friday 18 September 2026)?

No. EastEnders airs Monday to Thursday on BBC One at 7.30pm, so Thursday’s episode was the last of the week and it returns Monday 21 September at 7.30pm. Friday is its regular night off.

What time is Celebrity MasterChef on tonight?

Celebrity MasterChef is on BBC One at 8pm and is the last episode of the run, with the three finalists cooking a three-course meal for judges Grace Dent and Giorgio Locatelli.

What time is The Rainmaker on tonight?

The Rainmaker is on ITV1 at 10.45pm tonight, not its usual 9pm slot — a Beat the Chasers celebrity special has the 9pm hour instead. Tonight’s episode turns on something Sarah reveals, while Rudy chases down a “tissue committee” lead.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Friday 18 September 2026)?

Celebrity MasterChef’s final on BBC One at 8pm is the biggest event of the night, with Gardeners’ World’s allotment special also at 8pm and Starve Acre’s folk horror closing out BBC Two at 11pm.

What live sport is on TV tonight (Friday 18 September 2026)?

Brentford host Chelsea in the Premier League, kicking off at 8pm on Sky Sports. Day two of the BMW PGA Championship is live from Wentworth on Sky Sports Golf from 8.30am, and MotoGP practice from the Red Bull Ring ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix weekend is on TNT Sports from 12.15pm.

What’s on Channel 4 tonight?

Channel 4 opens a new series, George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces: First Homes, at 8pm, followed by Gogglebox at 9pm and Joe Lycett’s live pub show, Live from The Lycett Arms, at 10pm.

What film is on TV tonight?

Starve Acre is on BBC Two at 11pm, a folk-horror film starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark as a couple whose move to a remote cottage goes badly wrong. Certificate 15.

What happens in Emmerdale tonight?

Emmerdale is on ITV1 at 8pm, and tonight brings a moment fans have been waiting years for: Kim Tate and Sadie King, both back in the village at the same time for the first time, finally standing face to face.

What time does Rolling Stones Night start on BBC Four?

Rolling Stones Night starts on BBC Four at 10.15pm with a 2015 concert film of the band playing Sticky Fingers in full at the Fonda Theatre, followed by profile documentaries on Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood.

Final Verdict

Celebrity MasterChef‘s final is BBC One’s big swing tonight, and Gardeners’ World‘s allotment special is a genuinely lovely way to fill the same hour on the other side. Gogglebox does its usual reliable job at 9pm, and Starve Acre is worth staying up for if slow-building horror is your thing. Keep an eye on The Rainmaker‘s slot — tonight’s listings put it at 10.45pm rather than 9pm, so check before you settle in. EastEnders returns Monday at 7.30pm.

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