TV Guide UK Tonight: Sat 26 Sept 2026 – Strictly Come Dancing, England v Spain & Marble Hall Murders

Published: 22 September 2026

Saturday 26 September 2026. Strictly finally stops warming up: tonight is the first live show of series 24, all 15 couples dance, and BBC One hands it two and a half hours from 6.15pm. Up against it, ITV1 has England opening their Nations League campaign against Spain at Wembley: the world champions, at home, on free-to-air. Later on, Lesley Manville’s Susan Ryeland is dragged back into another literary murder in Marble Hall Murders at 9.35pm, and Channel 4 starts a restored two-part history of the space race at 8pm. EastEnders isn’t on.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• Strictly Come Dancing BBC One, 6.15pm. First live show of the series, and nobody goes home.
• Nations League: England v Spain ITV1, 6.45pm. Kick-off 7.45pm at Wembley.
• Marble Hall Murders BBC One, 9.35pm. Manville and Tim McMullan back on the Horowitz beat.
• The Space Race in Colour Channel 4, 8pm. Two hours of restored Cold War footage.
• EastEnders is not on tonight — it returns Monday at 7.30pm.

Early Evening

Saturday Kitchen Live – BBC One, 10am

The reliable start to a Saturday. Matt Tebbutt has John Chantarasak and Anna Haugh at the hobs, with Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen eating whatever turns up and facing the omelette clock. Ninety minutes, live, with the omelette clock still in place.

International Football: Slovenia v Scotland – BBC One, 1.45pm

Scotland’s Nations League campaign starts away in Slovenia, and it is the first competitive fixture under Sebastien Pocognoli. New manager, unfamiliar shape, awkward away trip. It is Scotland’s opening fixture of the campaign.

Everton/Liverpool XI v World XI: Game4Hope – Channel 5, 4pm

A Merseyside charity match raising money to tackle homelessness, and the venue is the story: it was due at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, but moved to Goodison Park a week ago so the legends could play at the old ground one more time. Tim Cahill captains a Merseyside XI managed by Peter Reid and John Barnes, against a Rest of the World XI led by Rivaldo and Clarence Seedorf. Kick-off 4.45pm, Tinie Tempah at half-time, and Channel 5 has cleared three hours for it.

The Celebrity Inner Circle – BBC One, 5.30pm

Tonight’s five famous faces are La Voix, Fred Sirieix, Dr Ranj Singh, Rav Wilding and Angellica Bell, each paired with a contestant who has to work out which of them is worth trusting. It is the warm-up act before Strictly, and it knows it.

Midsomer Murders – ITV3, 6.05pm

A double bill running straight through to 10pm on ITV3, which is either exactly what you want from a Saturday or the reason you have the remote. Two feature-length cases, back to back.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – ITV2, 6.25pm

The best of the eight, and it is not close. Alfonso Cuarón took over and immediately made the school feel like a real place with weather and mud in it, rather than a set. ITV2 follows it with Goblet of Fire at 8pm, so that is your evening gone if you let it be.

Would I Lie To You? – Dave, 6.20pm

Dave opens with a repeat of the panel show, then runs three back-to-back episodes of Ghosts from 7pm.

The Professionals – ITV4, 6.30pm

Bodie and Doyle, twice, on ITV4, before the channel turns to English Football League highlights at 9pm and Rocky II at 10pm.

Prime Time

Strictly Come Dancing – BBC One, 6.15pm ⭐

This is the one. The launch show back on 19 September did the pairings and the glitter cannon. Tonight they actually have to dance, live, and the gap between the ones who have been quietly training and the ones who have not shows up within about eight bars.

The full cast open the show together, which is the bit worth staying in for even if you have no intention of following the series. After that it is two and a half hours of first routines, which historically means two genuinely good ones, a handful of competent ones, and at least one person walking through a cha-cha with the expression of someone doing long division.

Nobody goes home tonight. Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke score, those scores carry over to next weekend, and the public vote opens then — so the leaderboard tonight is information, not a verdict. If you want the background on where to watch the series and how the voting works, we keep a full Strictly guide updated.

Nations League: England v Spain – ITV1, 6.45pm

The fixture of the round, and free to air. Spain arrive as world champions and have beaten England in the two tournament finals that mattered most recently, which gives this an edge that a group-stage opener does not normally carry. Coverage starts at 6.45pm and ITV1 stays with it until just after 10pm. If you want the rest of the week’s free-to-air football, we track it on the football on free TV page.

Wilderness with Simon Reeve – BBC Two, 7.45pm

Reeve is in Mexico, beneath the Sea of Cortez, which Jacques Cousteau once called the world’s aquarium and which has been comprehensively hammered since. The diving sequences include bull sharks at uncomfortably close range. What lifts it above the usual despairing nature hour is that Reeve keeps finding local projects that are actually working — small fisheries recovering, communities making a living from a sea they are no longer stripping. BBC Two has the full series on iPlayer.

Secrets of the Royal Servants – Channel 5, 7.05pm

Channel 5’s royal evening starts here, with the people who make the households function and the things they inevitably overhear. It runs into Fergie and the Fake Sheikh Scandal at 8.35pm, revisiting the 2010 newspaper sting that caught the Duchess of York offering access for money, and then a new run of Buckingham Palace: A Year in the Life at 9.35pm. Three hours of royal programming is a lot, but the palace documentary is the one with actual access.

The Space Race in Colour – Channel 4, 8pm

Two hours, two episodes, back to back. It opens in September 1944 with the first V-2 to hit London coming down on Staveley Road in Chiswick, killing three people, which is a genuinely good way to start: the rocket that killed people in west London and the rocket that put Americans in orbit were designed by the same man, Wernher von Braun, and the programme does not skate over that. The second hour moves to the Soviet side and Sergei Korolev, the engineer the USSR kept anonymous while he was beating the Americans to every milestone that counted. The restored footage is the selling point and it does look remarkable, but the reason to watch is that it gives Korolev something close to equal billing.

Attenborough’s Big Birds – BBC Four, 8pm

Archive Attenborough on the largest birds alive, which mostly means flightless ones with strong opinions. BBC Four then hands the rest of the night to French crime.

Bangers & Cash – Yesterday, 8pm

The Mathewsons are still finding improbable vehicles in improbable barns and sending them to auction at Thornton-le-Dale. Yesterday pairs it with Dream Car Fixers at 9pm.

Wisdom of the Crowd – BBC One, 8.45pm

John Bishop hosts this one, and the premise is neat: a single contestant plays against the studio audience, with up to £30,000 available if they can out-think the room. Statistically the crowd should win — averaged guesses from a large group are famously accurate — which means the show is really about whether one confident person can beat a mathematical principle. Bishop keeps it friendly while the contestant works out what they have taken on.

Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders at the BBC – BBC Two, 8.45pm

A trawl through four decades of BBC archive, which for a band this long-lived means everything from early Top of the Pops appearances to festival sets. Hynde turned 75 this year and has never once performed as though she needed anyone’s approval, which is what makes the old footage hold up. BBC Two follows it with their Glastonbury 2023 set at 10pm and an Arena profile at 11.30pm — effectively a full Pretenders night.

A Man Called Otto – Film4, 9pm

Tom Hanks as a widower whose days are organised around minor grievances and the enforcement of parking rules, until a family moves in opposite and declines to be intimidated. It is sentimental and it knows exactly which buttons it is pressing, but Hanks underplays the early scenes well enough that the turn feels earned. Film4 follows it with The Menu at 11.25pm, which is the opposite of comforting.

Paris Police 1910 – BBC Four, 9pm

Two episodes tonight. The Marguerite Steinheil case continues to resist Detective Jouin, who still cannot tie her to the deaths of her husband and mother, and the more interesting thread is the press — a newspaper in this week’s episodes resorts to intercepting her letters, which is the 1900s version of phone hacking and lands rather close to home.

Wallander – Drama, 9pm

Kenneth Branagh’s version, two hours of Swedish gloom on Drama.

The Ladykillers – GREAT! TV, 9pm

Alec Guinness, terrible teeth, and a robbery undone by a landlady who will not stop making tea. Still the funniest thing Ealing made, and GREAT! TV has it at 9pm.

Marble Hall Murders – BBC One, 9.35pm

Anthony Horowitz has built a second career out of continuing other people’s detectives, Bond and Holmes among them, so there is a nice symmetry in a story about a novelist handed someone else’s creation. Eliot Crace (Jamie Blackley) is struggling to pick up the Atticus Pünd books, and Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville) is back in London to make sure he does not ruin them. She finds a murder hidden inside his manuscript that maps a little too neatly onto his own family, and onto the death of his grandmother (Patricia Hodge) years earlier.

It is a mystery folded inside a mystery, which sounds clever-clever and mostly is, but Manville and Tim McMullan’s Pünd are good enough company that the structure never becomes homework. Full series on iPlayer if you would rather not wait a week between instalments.

Late Night

Kingsman: The Secret Service – Channel 4, 10pm

Colin Firth in a very good suit, recruiting a south London teenager into a spy outfit run out of a Savile Row tailor. The church sequence remains one of the most technically ridiculous action scenes of the last decade. Certificate 15.

Romesh Ranganathan’s Parents’ Evening – ITV1, 10.05pm

Straight out of the football. Ranganathan talks to guests about their families, which in his hands means finding the specific detail that makes everyone uncomfortable and then sitting in the silence.

Vera – ITV3, 10.05pm

Brenda Blethyn in the mac, feature-length, Northumberland looking bleak and beautiful.

Legally Blonde – BBC One, 10.45pm

Reese Witherspoon talks her way into Harvard Law and is underestimated by everyone in the building. Twenty-five years old now, and sharper than it was taken for at the time.

Sport

Three live football matches on free-to-air in one day is unusual, and the scheduling is kinder than it looks: Slovenia v Scotland finishes before Game4Hope starts, and Game4Hope is done before England kick off at 7.45pm. You can watch all three without missing anything, provided you have no other plans.

The clash is with Strictly, not within the sport. Both start inside half an hour of each other and both run past 8.30pm, so one of them is getting recorded.

ITV4 has English Football League highlights at 9pm. Away from football, the Laver Cup tennis and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix run through the day, but both are on subscription channels rather than Freeview.

Tonight by Channel

A channel-by-channel breakdown of Saturday 26 September 2026, so you can jump straight to the one you actually watch.

BBC One

• 10am — Saturday Kitchen Live
• 1.45pm — International Football: Slovenia v Scotland
• 5.30pm — The Celebrity Inner Circle
• 6.15pm — Strictly Come Dancing
• 8.45pm — Wisdom of the Crowd
• 9.35pm — Marble Hall Murders
• 10.45pm — Legally Blonde

BBC Two

• 7.45pm — Wilderness with Simon Reeve
• 8.45pm — Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders at the BBC

ITV1

• 6.45pm — Nations League: England v Spain
• 10.05pm — Romesh Ranganathan’s Parents’ Evening

Channel 4

• 8pm — The Space Race in Colour
• 10pm — Kingsman: The Secret Service

Channel 5

• 4pm — Everton/Liverpool XI v World XI: Game4Hope
• 7.05pm — Secrets of the Royal Servants
• 8.35pm — Fergie and the Fake Sheikh Scandal
• 9.35pm — Buckingham Palace: A Year in the Life

BBC Four

• 8pm — Attenborough’s Big Birds
• 9pm — Paris Police 1910

Dave

• 6.20pm — Would I Lie To You?
• 7pm — Ghosts

Film4

• 9pm — A Man Called Otto
• 11.25pm — The Menu

ITV3

• 6.05pm — Midsomer Murders
• 10.05pm — Vera

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

BBC iPlayer — Marble Hall Murders (full series), Wilderness with Simon Reeve (full series), Strictly Come Dancing, Paris Police 1910.

ITVX — Nations League coverage, Romesh Ranganathan’s Parents’ Evening.

Channel 4 — The Space Race in Colour, Kingsman: The Secret Service.

5 — Buckingham Palace: A Year in the Life, Game4Hope, Secrets of the Royal Servants.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Saturday 26 September 2026)?

No. EastEnders does not air on Saturdays. The soap runs Monday to Thursday at 7.30pm on BBC One, so the next episode is Monday 28 September. The full week is available as a boxset on iPlayer each Monday morning.

What time is Strictly Come Dancing on tonight?

Strictly Come Dancing starts at 6.15pm on BBC One and runs for two and a half hours, finishing at 8.45pm. This is the first live show of series 24, so all 15 couples dance.

Do I vote on Strictly tonight?

No. Tonight’s scores from Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke are carried over to next weekend, when the public vote opens for the first time and the first couple leaves. Nobody goes home tonight.

What time is England v Spain on tonight?

ITV1’s coverage begins at 6.45pm with kick-off at 7.45pm. England open their Nations League campaign against the world champions at Wembley. The programme runs until about 10.05pm.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Saturday 26 September 2026)?

Strictly Come Dancing on BBC One at 6.15pm. It is the first live show of the series, the point at which the 15 couples stop being a photocall and start being a competition. If you would rather avoid it, Marble Hall Murders on BBC One at 9.35pm is the best drama on tonight.

What live sport is on TV tonight: Saturday 26 September 2026?

England v Spain in the Nations League is on ITV1 from 6.45pm. Earlier, BBC One has Slovenia v Scotland at 1.45pm, and Channel 5 shows the Game4Hope charity match from 4pm. ITV4 has English Football League highlights at 9pm.

What’s on BBC One tonight?

BBC One runs The Celebrity Inner Circle at 5.30pm, Strictly Come Dancing at 6.15pm, Wisdom of the Crowd at 8.45pm, Marble Hall Murders at 9.35pm and the film Legally Blonde at 10.45pm.

What time is Marble Hall Murders on?

Marble Hall Murders is on BBC One at 9.35pm. Lesley Manville returns as editor Susan Ryeland opposite Tim McMullan’s Atticus Pünd. The full series is on iPlayer.

What film is on TV tonight?

Film4 has A Man Called Otto at 9pm and The Menu at 11.25pm. Channel 4 shows Kingsman: The Secret Service at 10pm, BBC One has Legally Blonde at 10.45pm, and GREAT! TV screens the Ealing comedy The Ladykillers at 9pm.

What time is Saturday Kitchen on today?

Saturday Kitchen Live is on BBC One at 10am for 90 minutes. Matt Tebbutt is joined by chefs John Chantarasak and Anna Haugh, with Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen as guests.

Final Verdict

Two things are competing for the same three hours tonight and there is no elegant way to have both. Strictly’s first live show is the bigger television event, and the opening group number is the part people will be talking about on Monday. England v Spain is the better contest. Record one, watch the other, and do not look at your phone.

If neither appeals, the night is unusually well stocked underneath them: the Space Race documentary on Channel 4 is a genuinely good two hours, Marble Hall Murders is the strongest new drama of the weekend, and The Ladykillers on GREAT! TV at 9pm quietly beats almost everything else on the schedule.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | Films on TV Tonight | Freeview Channel Guide