TV Guide UK Tonight: Thurs 26 Mar 2026 – MasterChef: The Professionals Final, Coronation Street & The Apprentice

Published: 21 March 2026

A big Thursday. MasterChef: The Professionals wraps up Series 18 on BBC One at 8pm with its grand final — Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Matt Tebbutt crowning a champion from the three remaining professionals. It’s also Tebbutt’s final appearance: he committed to just one series when he replaced Gregg Wallace, so tonight is the first and last MasterChef: The Professionals final he’ll ever judge. Coronation Street at 8:30pm brings things to a head in the Todd and Theo storyline, with the register office stunt revealing the full extent of how calculated Theo has been. The Apprentice goes for the shopping channel task at 9pm, which is exactly as gloriously awkward as you’d expect. Earlier, EastEnders at 7:30pm has Ronni Ancona’s Bea in full scheming mode after Honey asks her to leave, and there’s World Cup play-off football on the BBC from 7:45pm. A Woman of Substance continues on Channel 4 at 9pm, and Channel 5 launches the new Grantley Hall hotel series. Plenty to work through.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• MasterChef: The Professionals Final ⭐ — BBC One, 8pm — Series 18 grand final. Three finalists, one champion, and Tebbutt’s last night in the judge’s chair
• Coronation Street — ITV1, 8:30pm — Theo’s register office trap and the moment George sees through the whole act
• The Apprentice — BBC One, 9pm — Shopping channel task. Air-purifying headphones. Need we say more
• A Woman of Substance — Channel 4, 9pm — Emma Harte’s empire grows; the personal cost is becoming harder to hide
• World Cup football — BBC Two/Three, 7:45pm — Wales v Bosnia and Italy v Northern Ireland. Two huge semi-finals
• EastEnders — BBC One, 7:30pm — Bea fabricates an attack at McKlunky’s to stay in Honey’s good books

Early Evening

Great British Menu — BBC Two, 6:30pm (7pm N Ireland)

The North East and Yorkshire regional final comes down to two chefs whose scores have been level going into tonight’s judging round. The guest judge is Frank Cottrell-Boyce — the screenwriter best known for writing the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, which included the late Queen Elizabeth II’s celebrated James Bond sketch with Daniel Craig. Cottrell-Boyce is apparently enthusiastic about everything placed in front of him and brings some good Olympic anecdotes to the table alongside his verdicts. Tom Kerridge and Lorna McNee are less in agreement: one starter divides them sharply, with Kerridge loving it and McNee thoroughly unmoved. As the episode closes, Tom hints he might deploy his wildcard to rescue whichever chef misses the cut. Silver screen theme, high stakes, and two chefs too close to call. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

EastEnders — BBC One, 7:30pm

Bea Pollard has always occupied an uncertain space on Albert Square — is she comic relief, or something more troubling? Tonight tilts the balance. After Honey asks her to leave No. 18, Bea doesn’t accept it gracefully. Instead, she invents a serious incident at the McKlunky’s fast food restaurant where she works, claiming she was attacked by a customer. The truth is quite the reverse: Bea caused the damage herself. It’s a calculated move designed to make Honey feel guilty enough to let her stay, and the episode raises a genuine question about where Bea’s behaviour is heading. Ronni Ancona — the comedian best known for The Big Impression alongside Alistair McGowan — has brought real ambiguity to the role since joining in January, and this episode pushes that ambiguity about as far as it’ll go. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Stronger, Faster, Younger? Britain’s Steroid Boom: Tonight — ITV1, 7:30pm (10:45pm STV)

Reporter Antoine Allen looks at the estimated one million people in the UK currently using performance-enhancing substances — a figure that has grown well beyond competitive sport into everyday gym culture, fuelled in part by online trends such as “biohacking” and “looksmaxxing.” Allen meets people at the very start of their steroid regimens, with the timing deliberate: the world’s first Enhanced Games are due to take place in Las Vegas this May, where drug-assisted former Olympians will attempt to break world records in a competition that has no rules about what you can put in your body. Worth watching if you’ve ever wondered just how much of what you see on social media is pharmaceutical. Catch up via ITVX.

Prime Time

MasterChef: The Professionals Final ⭐ — BBC One, 8pm (BBC Two in Wales)

This is it. The Series 18 grand final, and — for reasons that have nothing to do with the competition itself — an unusually significant one. Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Matt Tebbutt welcome the three remaining professional chefs for the last time this series, each of whom must cook a three-course meal that represents the full range of what they’re capable of. The finalists are Dan Merriman, Chiara Tomasoni and George Birtwell.

The series moved to a new studio in Birmingham for 2026 — the first time in the show’s history — and Tebbutt replaced Gregg Wallace following the controversy around his departure in 2024. Tebbutt has been clear throughout: he was only ever committing to one year, so tonight is his one and only final as judge. Whether that was always the plan or the BBC will eventually confirm otherwise is another matter, but he has been a composed and knowledgeable presence alongside Wareing and Galetti.

One notable change this series was the skills test format: former champions and finalists were brought in to set the challenges, including 2016 winner Gary Maclean and 2022 champion Nikita Pathakji. It drew a mixed response from some viewers, but it gave the series a sense of continuity with its own history. Tonight all of that is set aside for the simplest possible task: three chefs, three menus, one winner. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Yorkshire’s Poshest Hotel: Grantley Hall — Channel 5, 8pm (NEW SERIES)

Richard Sykes and his mother Valeria purchased Grantley Hall — a Georgian country house near Ripon in North Yorkshire — in 2015, initially with plans to convert it into a high-end hotel. What they built is something rather more substantial: a five-star retreat set across 38 acres, with rooms ranging from around £1,000 to £4,500 a night and a self-described philosophy of delivering “posh guesthouse” hospitality without the stuffiness to match.

In the first episode, the pressure arrives quickly. The hotel’s tented bistro is in the middle of an ambitious renovation with just three days to completion before a launch event packed with critics and VIP guests. Interior and Ambience Manager Marek is trying to hold everything together, but a water leak into the foundations gives the maintenance team a problem that has no polite solution. Meanwhile, front-of-house character Isaac handles the arrival of a VIP guest with the sort of ebullience that suggests he was born for television as much as for hospitality. Four episodes in total. Catch up via Channel 5 streaming.

Bangers and Cash — US&Yesterday, 8pm

Derek Mathewson and the Mathewsons Classic Car Auctions team are back for another evening of unusual vehicles and the stories that come with them. Tonight’s selection covers quite a range: a 1985 Rover SDt, which will appeal to a specific kind of enthusiast; a Harley-Davidson military motorcycle from the Second World War, estimated at around £15,000 and likely to attract serious attention on the bidding floor; and a pair of vintage Triumph motorcycles whose owner, pragmatically, would rather spend his time with a model railway than maintain them. The pick of the night might be a 1992 Peugeot 205 GTi with remarkably low mileage, whose new owner is, by the end of the episode, already completely smitten with it. Catch up via U.

Coronation Street — ITV1, 8:30pm

If you’ve been following the Todd and Theo storyline, this is the episode you’ve been waiting for. Theo’s behaviour throughout this arc has been methodical and controlling in ways that have been visible to viewers long before anyone on the Street has noticed. Tonight he goes further: luring Todd to the register office on what Todd believes is the date of their now-cancelled wedding, only to reveal that he never actually cancelled the booking. It’s not an impulsive gesture — it’s another attempt to tighten his grip. What Theo hadn’t planned for is George, who drops by the flat while Theo is out and is still there when Theo returns, assuming Todd is in the bathroom. The insults Theo shouts through the door — cruel and unguarded — are overheard by George as he walks in. It’s one of those soap moments that hinges on the smallest piece of bad timing, and it lands properly. Catch up via ITVX.

The Apprentice — BBC One, 9pm (BBC Two in Wales)

The shopping channel task has been a fixture of The Apprentice since almost the beginning, and it endures because it reliably exposes the gap between how the candidates see themselves and how they come across on camera. The format is straightforward: teams select products, then attempt to sell them live on a TV shopping channel to a studio audience with money to spend. Watching candidates try to generate enthusiasm for items they clearly don’t understand, in a television genre most of them have probably never watched, is a particular kind of joy.

This week’s selection apparently includes something described as air-purifying headphones, which should give you a reasonable sense of the standard of product sourcing. Lord Sugar watches the whole thing from home, dressed in a polo shirt and accompanied by his grandson, looking no more impressed with the process than he does in the boardroom. Series 20 has had twenty candidates — the largest intake since Series 10 back in 2014 — and Karren Brady and Tim Campbell continue as his aides. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

A Woman of Substance — Channel 4, 9pm

Barbara Taylor Bradford’s novel has been adapted before — the 1985 miniseries with Jenny Seagrove and Deborah Kerr remains fondly remembered — but this Channel 4 reimagining makes a confident case for itself. Jessica Reynolds carries the young Emma Harte scenes with real authority, and Brenda Blethyn brings a different weight entirely to the older Emma.

This episode makes the cost of Emma’s success its central concern. She has the emporium, she has the family, she has the respect she spent her early life being denied — and yet the control she exercises over every aspect of her life, down to the precise arrangement of Christmas decorations, is beginning to look less like competence and more like armour. There’s a persuasive case being made here that Emma’s drive was born not just from ambition but from something that happened to her, and that the life she’s built is as much protection as achievement. The Fairley family — Emmett J. Scanlan among the cast — continue to provide ample material for revenge, which the show dispenses with real satisfaction. Full boxset available on Channel 4 streaming.

Late Night

The Sense of an Ending — BBC Four, 9:30pm

Three stars. Ritesh Batra’s 2017 film of Julian Barnes’s Booker Prize-winning novel is quiet, measured and occasionally frustrating in ways that are probably faithful to the source material. Jim Broadbent plays Tony Webster, a retired man living alone in London whose orderly recollection of his youth — particularly a significant relationship and the complicated fallout from it — turns out to be considerably less reliable than he has always assumed.

Charlotte Rampling and Harriet Walter co-star. Batra, making his English-language debut after Lunchbox, keeps everything deliberately restrained, and the film rewards patience more than it rewards attention. It’s not everyone’s idea of gripping viewing, but Broadbent is very good and the film holds together more than its somewhat underwhelming reputation suggests.

The screening is part of a BBC Four evening celebrating Julian Barnes, whose new novel Departure(s) — published in January 2026 to coincide with his 80th birthday — he has announced will be his last. The evening is bookended with a 2014 Mark Lawson interview with the author and other features. If you’ve been meaning to read the novel, the film is a reasonable starting point, even if it can’t quite capture what makes the book distinctive. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Sport

Football: World Cup Play-Off Semi-Finals — Wales v Bosnia-Herzegovina on BBC Two from 7:30pm (k/o 7:45pm, not shown in Wales or Northern Ireland). Italy v Northern Ireland on BBC Three (k/o 7:45pm). The winners of both matches face each other in the play-off final next week, with the overall winner qualifying for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Tennis: Miami Open — Women’s semi-finals and two men’s quarter-finals on Sky Sports Tennis from 4:30pm, then Sky Sports Main Event from 10pm.

Cycling: Tour of Catalunya — Stage four, from Mataró to Vallter, on TNT Sports 1 from 2:15pm.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

BBC iPlayer: MasterChef: The Professionals Final, EastEnders, The Apprentice, Great British Menu, The Sense of an Ending
ITVX: Coronation Street, Stronger Faster Younger? Britain’s Steroid Boom: Tonight, The Martin Lewis Money Show Live
Channel 4 streaming: A Woman of Substance (full boxset available now)
Channel 5 streaming/My5: Yorkshire’s Poshest Hotel: Grantley Hall
U (UKTV Play): Bangers and Cash
Sky Sports: Miami Open tennis

Frequently Asked Questions

What time is the MasterChef: The Professionals final on tonight?

MasterChef: The Professionals grand final is on BBC One at 8pm tonight (Thursday 26th March 2026). Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Matt Tebbutt judge the three finalists — Dan Merriman, Chiara Tomasoni and George Birtwell — as they each cook a full three-course meal. It’s Matt Tebbutt’s only series as judge, so this is his first and last grand final. On BBC Two in Wales. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Is EastEnders on TV tonight?

Yes, EastEnders is on BBC One at 7:30pm tonight (Thursday 26th March 2026). EastEnders airs Monday to Thursday. Tonight, Bea Pollard (played by Ronni Ancona) turns nasty after Honey asks her to leave No. 18, fabricating an incident at McKlunky’s in order to win Honey’s sympathy. The question the episode poses — is Bea a comic character or something more sinister — is becoming harder to dodge. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

What time is Coronation Street on tonight?

Coronation Street is on ITV1 at 8:30pm tonight (Thursday 26th March 2026). Todd is lured by Theo to the register office on what he believed was the day of their cancelled wedding — only for Theo to reveal the booking was never actually cancelled. Later, George overhears Theo saying things that expose his true character. Catch up via ITVX.

Is there World Cup football on TV tonight?

Yes — two World Cup 2026 European play-off semi-finals. Wales host Bosnia-Herzegovina on BBC Two from 7:45pm (not shown in Wales or Northern Ireland). Northern Ireland travel to Bergamo to face Italy, also on BBC Three from 7:45pm. The winners face each other in next week’s play-off final, with the victor qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight?

Our top pick is MasterChef: The Professionals grand final on BBC One at 8pm — the climax of a strong series and Matt Tebbutt’s only final as judge. Coronation Street at 8:30pm is must-watch if you’ve followed the Todd and Theo storyline. The Apprentice shopping channel task at 9pm is guaranteed entertainment. A Woman of Substance on Channel 4 at 9pm is excellent if you want drama, and the new Grantley Hall series on Channel 5 at 8pm is a strong opener.

What’s on BBC One tonight?

BBC One tonight (Thursday 26th March 2026) includes EastEnders at 7:30pm, MasterChef: The Professionals grand final at 8pm and The Apprentice shopping channel task at 9pm. Wales v Bosnia-Herzegovina is on BBC Two from 7:45pm (not shown in Wales or Northern Ireland).

What time is The Apprentice on tonight?

The Apprentice is on BBC One at 9pm tonight (Thursday 26th March 2026). The candidates sell products live on a TV shopping channel, with Lord Sugar watching from home. On BBC Two in Wales. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Final Verdict

MasterChef: The Professionals is the one to watch tonight without much argument — this is the grand final of Series 18, and the combination of high-calibre cooking and the knowledge that this is Tebbutt’s last night in the chair gives it a slightly elegiac quality. Whether or not you’ve followed every episode, finals tend to make good standalone viewing.

Coronation Street at 8:30pm is unmissable if you’ve been watching the Todd and Theo arc. The Theo storyline has been handled with unusual restraint for a soap, and the moment George accidentally witnesses Theo’s real behaviour has been a long time coming. It’s the kind of quiet, well-constructed revelation that Coronation Street does better than almost anyone.

For something considerably less quiet, The Apprentice shopping channel task at 9pm delivers the series at its most reliably watchable. The candidates’ relationship with TV retail is consistently catastrophic, and the air-purifying headphones pitch sounds like it could be the episode’s high point.

On Channel 4, A Woman of Substance at 9pm continues to justify its existence as a remake. It takes the right aspects of Bradford’s novel — the class dynamics, the revenge fantasy elements, the sheer scale of Emma’s ambition — and treats them with seriousness rather than camp. Worth catching up on from the start if you haven’t already.

New series Yorkshire’s Poshest Hotel: Grantley Hall on Channel 5 at 8pm is a promising opener. If you’ve ever watched a hotel documentary and wished for a more photogenic building and a more naturally entertaining front-of-house team, this is your Thursday.

World Cup play-off football on the BBC from 7:45pm is significant: Wales and Northern Ireland can’t both qualify, so one of the most consequential nights in recent British football history is settling itself tonight on free-to-air television. The Sense of an Ending on BBC Four at 9:30pm is for those who prefer Jim Broadbent and quiet melancholy to penalty shootouts.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight Thursday | What’s On TV Tonight Wed 25 Mar 2026 | What’s On TV Tonight Fri 27 Mar 2026