TV Guide UK Tonight: Sun 23 Aug 2026 – The Piano Final, Why Sharks Attack & Jaws

Sunday 23 August 2026. Channel 4 closes The Piano with a concert-hall final, BBC Two spends the night in the water with a shark documentary and then Jaws itself, and BBC One hands the Antiques Roadshow over to VJ Day. ITV1 counters with Andrew Lincoln narrating a desert wildlife hour and a late new thriller. EastEnders is off, as it is every Sunday.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• The Piano: the Final Channel 4, 9pm. Birmingham Symphony Hall, one winner.
• Why Sharks Attack / Jaws BBC Two, 9pm and 10pm. The documentary, then the film that caused the problem.
• The Terror: Devil in Silver Sky Atlantic, 9pm. New season, Dan Stevens leading.
• Antiques Roadshow: VJ Day Special BBC One, 7pm. No valuations tonight.
• EastEnders isn’t on tonight. It never airs on a Sunday. Next episode is Monday.

Early Evening

Countryfile – BBC One, 6pm

Adam Henson is in the Yorkshire Dales meeting Frank Carr, a young farmer running beef and sheep. Standard Countryfile fare, and none the worse for it.

Antiques Roadshow: VJ Day Special – BBC One, 7pm

Fiona Bruce fronts an edition given over to the Forgotten War and this year’s marking of Victory Over Japan day. Families bring in diaries, photographs, a flag, a newspaper front page, a dog tag and a hand-made chess set, each attached to a story about conditions under Japanese captivity. Nothing is valued, which is entirely the point. There is also testimony from a handful of surviving veterans, and an exchange between descendants of two men who fought on opposite sides at Kohima.

Force of Nature – ITV1, 7pm

Andrew Lincoln narrates, and the script gives him a line about hell on earth that his accent turns into something closer to two separate words. The heat in the Sonoran Desert genuinely is punishing, though, and the filming is excellent: a young wombat, a kangaroo rat and a pregnant leopard all trying to get through it. Given the summer we’ve had, the drought footage lands differently than the producers probably intended.

The Joy of Pets – ITV1, 11.30am

A late-morning start for a new series, with Gaby Roslin joining the long line of famous people making programmes about animals. It opens in Horsham with a blind rescue husky given a chance at a foster home and a rat going in for surgery, and vet Dr Bolu Eso, familiar from Pooch Perfect and Fur Babies, supplies the actual advice.

The Greatest Showman – Film4, 7pm

Film4 has the 2017 musical that opened badly, ignored its reviews and then sat in the album charts for over a year. Hugh Jackman is PT Barnum, the history is nonsense, and the songs do not care.

Prime Time

The Piano: the Final – Channel 4, 9pm ⭐

Six weeks of turning up unannounced at railway stations end tonight at Birmingham Symphony Hall, with 2,000 people in the room and no train announcements to play over. Mika and Claudia Winkleman are joined by guest judge Alice Sara Ott, and between them they have to pick a single winner from finalists who have all been extraordinary in their own way. Two of them are visibly not the same people they were in episode one, which is the reason anyone watches this.

Why Sharks Attack – BBC Two, 9pm

Shark attacks remain vanishingly rare, and this hour sets out why the ones that do happen are increasingly occurring in shallow water close to shore. It’s a sober piece of work, and it is being shown tonight for an obvious reason.

The Terror: Devil in Silver – Sky Atlantic, 9pm

Psychiatric hospitals have rarely been well served by horror, so a season set inside one starts on the back foot. Nothing carries over between runs of this series except the name, which is its own small oddity, and this one at least wants the scares and the argument about how we treat mentally ill people to sit in the same room. Dan Stevens plays Pepper, a drummer who gets arrested after a fight and finds himself delivered not to a police station but to New Hyde Hospital, where he’s told he’ll be released in three days if he behaves. Then hands start coming out of the walls, and only he can see them. Two episodes tonight, from 9pm.

9/11 Reunited – National Geographic, 9pm

A new series that puts people back in touch decades after a few minutes together on 11 September 2001. Debbie St John, badly injured by falling debris as she fled the World Trade Center, is reunited with the bond trader who shielded her in the crush and flagged down an ambulance. Another strand follows three men trapped in a lift, freed when one of them used a window cleaner’s squeegee to cut through plasterboard. Two episodes, and then it runs again tomorrow at 9pm.

Inside the Four Seasons: Park Lane – Channel 5, 8pm

Made in the middle of a storm, which is not the weather any of us have had for weeks. Gale-force winds shut part of Heathrow, flights back up, and the hotel’s staff spend the hour absorbing the consequences, along with a demanding royal booking and an outdoor wedding in Hampshire with the weather closing in. Channel 5 has been doing these hotel series for years and this is a good one.

Darkest Hour – BBC One, 8pm

Gary Oldman won the Oscar under several hours of prosthetics as Churchill in the first weeks of the premiership, with France collapsing and half the cabinet wanting terms. It pairs oddly well with the Antiques Roadshow that precedes it.

No Time to Die – ITV1, 8pm

Three hours of Daniel Craig’s last Bond, and the only entry in the series willing to finish something. Whatever you think of the ending, it means the previous four films were building towards a point rather than resetting each time. ITV1 runs it through to 11pm.

Blue Planet Revisited: A Shark’s Tale – BBC Two, 8pm

The set-up for BBC Two’s shark evening, following researchers back to populations the original Blue Planet filmed and finding a lot fewer of them. Watch it before the 9pm documentary and the film that caused the problem.

Sister Boniface Mysteries – Drama, 8pm

Worth noting if you like this one: Drama has an episode tonight and BBC One picks up the series three opener on Friday afternoon at 2pm. Lorna Watson’s forensic nun is the most cheerful thing in the murder-mystery business.

BBC Proms – BBC Four, 8pm

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, led by Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, open with Britten’s Simple Symphony. Listen for the echo of The Archers theme in it. Felix Klieser, who was born without arms and plays the horn with his toes, returns for Mozart’s Horn Concerto No 3 in E flat. There’s also a premiere of Thea Musgrave’s Out of the Darkness with bassoonist Amy Harman, Elgar’s Romance for bassoon and orchestra, and Mozart’s Haffner to finish. Georgia Mann hosts.

Late Night

Jaws – BBC Two, 10pm

Spielberg made the most effective thriller of the 1970s and then spent decades apologising for what it did to sharks. Watched straight after the documentary at 9pm, the contrast is the point. If you miss it, BBC Four repeats it on Thursday at 9pm, with Talking Pictures: Jaws at 11pm and Jaws 2 at 11.45pm.

Copenhagen – BBC Four, from 10pm

Michael Frayn introduces his own play at 10pm before Howard Davies’s 2002 screen version starts at 10.10pm. Daniel Craig, Stephen Rea and Francesca Annis work through a wartime meeting between two nuclear physicists that nobody has ever satisfactorily explained.

Apollo 13 – ITV4, 9pm

ITV4 has Ron Howard’s 1995 film about four days of arithmetic done under the worst conditions imaginable. It is almost entirely men in short sleeves working out sums, and it is unbearably tense.

Silent Witness – Drama, 9pm

A double bill on Drama, running to 11.15pm. Nikki Alexander’s cases have been getting bleaker for about fifteen years now and show no sign of lightening up.

Gogglebox – Channel 4, 10pm

Straight after The Piano final, which means you get to watch several sofas watching the thing you have just watched.

Match of the Day – BBC One, 10.30pm

Sunday’s round-up, led by Newcastle against Liverpool at St James’ Park.

One Dollar – ITV1, 11.20pm

A new American mystery series in which a single banknote passes between strangers in a small town and quietly ties them all to a multiple murder. Worth setting the recorder for.

Sport

Newcastle host Liverpool from 4pm on Sky Sports Main Event and Premier League, kicking off at 4.30pm. The Dutch Grand Prix build-up begins at 12.30pm on Sky Sports F1 with the race at 2pm. Day five of the first England v Pakistan Test at Headingley starts at 10.15am on Sky Sports Cricket, with highlights on BBC Two at 7pm, and La Vuelta continues on TNT Sports 1 from 3pm.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

• BBC iPlayer: Countryfile, Antiques Roadshow: VJ Day Special, Why Sharks Attack, Jaws, BBC Proms, Copenhagen
• ITVX: The Joy of Pets, Force of Nature, One Dollar
• Channel 4 streaming: The Piano: the Final, Gogglebox, F1 highlights
• 5: Inside the Four Seasons: Park Lane
• NOW / Disney+: The Terror: Devil in Silver, 9/11 Reunited

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Sunday 23 August 2026)?

No. EastEnders doesn’t air on Sundays. BBC One runs Countryfile at 6pm, the VJ Day Antiques Roadshow at 7pm and Darkest Hour at 8pm instead. The soap is back in its weekday slot on Monday.

What time is The Piano final on tonight?

The Piano: the Final is on Channel 4 at 9pm. The finalists perform at Birmingham Symphony Hall in front of 2,000 people, with Mika, Claudia Winkleman and guest judge Alice Sara Ott choosing the winner.

What time is Jaws on BBC Two tonight?

Jaws is on BBC Two at 10pm, straight after Why Sharks Attack at 9pm. If you miss it, it’s on again on Thursday at 9pm on BBC Four, followed by Talking Pictures: Jaws at 11pm and Jaws 2 at 11.45pm.

What live sport is on TV tonight: Sunday 23 August 2026?

Newcastle host Liverpool from 4pm on Sky Sports Main Event (kick-off 4.30pm). The Dutch Grand Prix build-up starts at 12.30pm on Sky Sports F1 with lights out at 2pm, day five of the England v Pakistan Test begins at 10.15am on Sky Sports Cricket, and La Vuelta is on TNT Sports 1 from 3pm.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Sunday 23 August 2026)?

The Piano: the Final on Channel 4 at 9pm is the pick. BBC Two’s Why Sharks Attack and Jaws double bill and the new season of The Terror on Sky Atlantic are the alternatives.

Is there a James Bond film on tonight?

Yes. No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond, is on ITV1 at 8pm and runs to 11pm with breaks. One Dollar follows at 11.20pm.

What’s on BBC One tonight?

BBC One runs Countryfile at 6pm, the VJ Day Antiques Roadshow at 7pm, Darkest Hour at 8pm and Match of the Day at 10.30pm.

What time is the Dutch Grand Prix on today?

Sky Sports F1 starts its Dutch Grand Prix build-up at 12.30pm with the race itself at 2pm. Channel 4 shows the highlights from 6.30pm.

What time is Antiques Roadshow on tonight?

The Antiques Roadshow VJ Day Special is on BBC One at 7pm. Fiona Bruce presents an hour of objects belonging to Far East prisoners of war, and nothing in it is given a valuation.

Final Verdict

Sunday 23 August is unusually well stocked. The Piano: the Final takes it — six weeks of station pianos deserve a proper concert hall ending. Why Sharks Attack and Jaws make an obvious but irresistible double bill on BBC Two, The Terror starts a new season with Dan Stevens on excellent form, and the VJ Day Antiques Roadshow is the quiet highlight of the early evening. Set the recorder for One Dollar at 11.20pm. EastEnders is off until tomorrow.

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