TV Guide UK Tonight: Sat 8 Aug 2026 – The Staircase, Dictator: the Hitler Interviews & Gloria Hunniford Night

Saturday 8 August 2026. ITV1 finally delivers a verdict in The Staircase at 10:20pm, BBC Four clears its evening for a Gloria Hunniford tribute from 8pm, and Channel 4 runs a Hitler documentary into a two-part Elvis exposé. BBC One works through its usual Saturday quiz relay towards Alan Partridge, BBC Two gives Paul Heaton a night of his own, and Channel 5 pours a glass of Sussex fizz. No EastEnders, though — it never turns up on a Saturday.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• The Staircase ⭐ ITV1, 10:20pm. The jury’s decision finally arrives.
• Gloria Hunniford Night BBC Four, from 8pm. A full evening built around the veteran broadcaster.
• Dictator: the Hitler Interviews Channel 4, 9pm. Eyewitness testimony from people who actually knew him.
• Elvis, the Colonel and the Mob Channel 4, 10pm. A two-parter digging into Presley’s Vegas years.
• Women’s Tour de France TNT Sports 1, 2:30pm. The race’s longest stage, finishing in Nice.
• EastEnders isn’t on tonight. The soap sits out every Saturday.

Early Evening

The Hit List Celebrity Special – BBC One, 6:10pm

Chris Hughes and Jack P Shepherd, Sara Pascoe and Rhys James, and Gary Lamont and Renee Bailey pair off for a charity edition, racing through six decades of chart hits. There’s a deliberately mean question buried in there about something released after 2005, just to catch the quicker teams out. BBC iPlayer.

Alan Carr’s Picture Slam – BBC One, 6:55pm

Three teams shout out guesses as a hidden image slowly comes into focus, with £10,000 up for grabs for whoever gets there first. BBC iPlayer.

Over on ITV1 at 7pm, Adam and Ryan Thomas take on the Banker together for charity. Channel 5 uses the same slot to send its new Sussex series to Breaky Bottom vineyard near Lewes, where sparkling wine now accounts for a big chunk of the county’s output. Channel 4 slots in a repeat of Sandi Toksvig’s Hidden Wonders, a dig into an Iron Age cemetery in Dorset first shown on More4.

Space Soundtracks at the Proms – BBC Two, 7:35pm

Nick Mohammed hosts this compendium pulled from the Proms archive, and it’s a genuinely well-picked set: John Williams’s Star Wars and E.T. themes, Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar, Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (the Kubrick cue everyone knows without knowing its name), Holst’s Planets, and Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight, familiar from both Arrival and this year’s Hamnet. BBC iPlayer.

Michael McIntyre’s Big Show – BBC One, 7:40pm

A repeat from earlier in the run, with Josh Widdicombe and Tony Bellew dropping by and both Justin Hawkins and Olly Alexander taking a turn performing. BBC iPlayer.

Prime Time

Bettany Hughes’s Lost Worlds: Dawn of Civilisations – Channel 4, 8pm

Hughes heads into Anatolia, the part of modern Turkey where archaeologists keep pushing back the start date for civilisation itself. Ephesus gets its due, but the more interesting stretch covers Cappadocia’s hermit caves and the medieval hospital at Divriği. Channel 4 streaming.

Gloria Hunniford Night – BBC Four, from 8pm

BBC Four gives its whole evening to Gloria Hunniford, marking her 86th year on air with a proper tribute rather than a clips reel. It opens with a new profile covering her move from Belfast news reporting into primetime, plus the loss of her daughter Caron Keating and the breast cancer charity founded in her memory. Archive follows: a 1995 sit-down with Doris Day, Hunniford’s own turn guest-hosting Wogan, and a 1983 spot on The Val Doonican Music Show. BBC iPlayer.

Right alongside it, BBC One slots Pointless Celebrities in at 8:35pm, still rewarding the answer nobody thought of rather than the obvious one.

Paul Heaton Night – BBC Two, from 8:35pm

Heaton wrote or co-wrote around 25 top 40 hits between the Housemartins and the Beautiful South, and BBC Two spends the evening proving it. An archive collection runs first, then his 2025 homecoming show at Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane closes things out. BBC iPlayer.

Dictator: the Hitler Interviews – Channel 4, 9pm

This series works because it skips the narration and lets the witnesses talk. Tonight it’s Daily Express journalist Sefton Delmer, who was at the Reichstag Fire and remembers Hitler pinning the blame on the left in real time, and Christabel Bielenberg, who lived through the antisemitic campaign as it built in Germany. Channel 4 streaming.

How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) – BBC One, 9:25pm

Alan takes himself off to the Peak District, armed with nothing but a selfie stick, to find out if a walk up a hill counts as therapy. BBC iPlayer.

Late Night

Elvis, the Colonel and the Mob – Channel 4, 10pm & 11:05pm

This two-parter goes at Elvis’s Las Vegas years from an unusual angle: less about the music, more about who was running the numbers. The argument is that Colonel Tom Parker’s gambling habit left him owing organised crime, and that Vegas’s casinos, mob-owned in all but name at the time, extended him credit no legitimate manager should have got. It’s built around his seven-year residency at what’s now the Las Vegas Hilton. Channel 4 streaming.

The Staircase – ITV1, 10:20pm ⭐

Weeks of circling finally land somewhere. Colin Firth’s Michael Peterson gets his verdict tonight, and the episode folds in a flashback to the staircase itself, the one detail the whole case has never quite settled. Toni Collette’s Kathleen has been gone since early on, but her presence has shaped every episode since. ITVX.

Ghosts Australia – BBC Three, from 10:50pm

Series finale for the Australian remake, and it goes out on a soft note rather than a big one: Kate’s boyfriend enlists the house’s ghosts to help pull off an elaborate proposal. Full series on iPlayer.

Sport

Colchester United host Southampton in the Carabao Cup first round, kicking off at 5:30pm on Sky Sports Main Event. Unbeaten Aaron McKenna meets unbeaten Etinosa Oliha for the vacant IBF world middleweight title, live from Dublin from 7:45pm. And the Women’s Tour de France hits its longest stage, 171.9km from Sisteron to Nice with a lumpy finale, live on TNT Sports 1 from 2:30pm.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

• BBC iPlayer: The Hit List Celebrity Special, Alan Carr’s Picture Slam, Space Soundtracks at the Proms, Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, Gloria Hunniford Night, Paul Heaton Night, Pointless Celebrities, How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge), Ghosts Australia
• ITVX: Deal or No Deal Celebrity Special, The Staircase
• Channel 4 streaming: Sandi Toksvig’s Hidden Wonders, Bettany Hughes’s Lost Worlds, Dictator: the Hitler Interviews, Elvis, the Colonel and the Mob
• My5: Sussex: Jewel of the South Coast

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Saturday 8 August 2026)?

No. EastEnders airs Monday to Thursday on BBC One at around 7:30pm and doesn’t broadcast on Saturdays, so there’s no new episode this evening. Catch up via BBC iPlayer, or wait for Monday’s return.

What time is The Staircase on ITV1 tonight?

The Staircase is on ITV1 at 10:20pm tonight, with Colin Firth’s Michael Peterson finally facing the verdict in his wife Kathleen’s death. The full series is on ITVX.

What is Gloria Hunniford Night on BBC Four?

Gloria Hunniford Night is a tribute evening from 8pm marking the broadcaster’s 86th birthday year, mixing a new profile of her career with archive clips including a 1995 Doris Day interview and her stint hosting Wogan.

What live sport is on TV tonight: Saturday 8 August 2026?

The Women’s Tour de France reaches its longest stage, 171.9km from Sisteron to Nice, live on TNT Sports 1 from 2:30pm. Aaron McKenna fights Etinosa Oliha for the vacant IBF world middleweight title on Sky Sports Main Event from 7:45pm, and Colchester United host Southampton in the Carabao Cup from 5:30pm.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Saturday 8 August 2026)?

The Staircase on ITV1 at 10:20pm is the pick of the night, finally delivering the verdict this true-crime drama has been building towards. Gloria Hunniford Night on BBC Four from 8pm is the other standout.

Final Verdict

ITV1 wins the night with The Staircase ⭐, closing out with the verdict everyone’s been waiting on. Gloria Hunniford Night gives BBC Four real weight, and Paul Heaton Night makes a strong case for BBC Two. If documentaries are more your evening, Dictator: the Hitler Interviews and Elvis, the Colonel and the Mob both deliver on Channel 4. No EastEnders, as ever on a Saturday.

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