TV Guide UK Tonight: Thurs 28 May 2026 – Putin in Ten Pictures, One to One: John and Yoko & A Taste for Murder Finale

Published: 21 May 2026

Thursday 28 May 2026. Two documentaries, a soap wedding implosion and a series finale all landing in the same prime-time slot. Putin: in Ten Pictures on BBC Two at 9pm is the night’s standout. EastEnders at 7:30pm has a wedding-day showdown that Ross and Vicki fans will not want to miss. A Taste for Murder wraps up on ITV1 at 9pm. And Make That Movie on Channel 4 from 10pm might be the strangest new commission of the year.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• Putin: in Ten Pictures ⭐ — BBC Two, 9pm — A Life in Ten Pictures goes somewhere unexpected. All episodes on iPlayer
• One to One: John and Yoko — Sky Documentaries, 9pm — Kevin Macdonald, newly discovered phone tapes, the 1972 concert
• A Taste for Murder — ITV1, 9pm — SERIES FINALE. Joe’s last night in Capri. Sofia’s death revisited
• EastEnders — BBC One, 7:30pm — Vicki’s wedding day falls apart. Publicly
• Make That Movie — Channel 4, 10pm — NEW SERIES. Sam Campbell doing things only Sam Campbell would do

Sport

Women’s T20 Cricket: England v India – Sky Sports Cricket, 6pm

The three-match T20 series starts tonight at the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground in Chelmsford. England at home, first ball of a new series. Sky Sports Cricket, subscription required.

Tennis: French Open Day 5 – TNT Sports 1 & 4, 9:30am

Day five at Roland Garros, second-round matches on the clay. TNT Sports 1 and 4 from 9:30am. Subscription required.

Cycling: Giro d’Italia Stage 18 – TNT Sports 3, 11:30am

Stage 18 takes the peloton 171km from Fai della Paganella to Pieve di Soligo. Hilly. The kind of stage that makes the overall standings interesting. TNT Sports 3 from 11:30am. Subscription required.

Early Evening

EastEnders – BBC One, 7:30pm

The Fowler family has form when it comes to weddings going wrong, and tonight’s is apparently no different. Ross Marshall wants a straight answer from Vicki: did she sleep with Zack Hudson? Zack is the half-brother of Vicki’s adoptive half-sister, which tells you everything about the Walford talent for compounding complication. Vicki has inherited quite a lot from her father Den Watts, none of it uncomplicated. The ceremony turns into a public reckoning. BBC iPlayer.

MasterChef – BBC One, 8pm

Contestants cook a dish inspired by someone who matters to them. Simple premise, genuinely unpredictable results. The personal connection either gives the dish its best quality or becomes a distraction, and there’s no way to know which until it’s in front of the judges. The final week of spots are up for grabs. BBC iPlayer.

George Clarke’s Beautiful Builds – Channel 4, 8pm

Series two starts here. Architect George Clarke has been reconfiguring UK homes for years — tonight it’s Mitch and Elliott’s three-bedroom place in Bromley, where the brief is opening up the ground floor, adding an extension, and finding somewhere to put some arched triptych doors that are quite something. Garden designer Luke Millard handles the outdoor space. The results are, predictably, lovely. George Clarke doesn’t do ugly. C4 streaming.

Cornwall: a Year by the Sea – Channel 5, 8pm

Spring in the south-west, which this year has meant cleaning up after winter storms that managed to deposit a baby seal inside a surf school and a jellyfish on the balcony of the Minack Theatre. The Global Pasty Championships are running at the Gardens of Heligan, and St Piran’s Day brings out pipes, flags and beards. Several of tonight’s featured names have circled back to Cornwall after leaving, which says something about the place. 5 streaming.

Classic Movies: the Story of Mulholland Drive – Sky Arts, 8pm

The Classic Movies series makes its first proper venture into the 21st century with David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001). Slippery film to write about. The first two acts play like a noir thriller, the third act throws the whole thing into a tumble dryer and zips it up. Lynch himself appears to discuss his creative process, which is inspiring in the way that watching a gifted improviser at work is inspiring — no clearer for watching, but you’d rather have seen it than not. The film follows at 9pm on Sky Arts. Available on Now.

Marilyn Monroe Night – BBC Four, from 8pm

A documentary revisiting Monroe’s life starts the night, followed by Some Like It Hot at 8:45pm. The previous Thursday BBC Four ran a full Monroe centenary night; tonight picks up where that left off, essentially. BBC iPlayer.

Prime Time

Putin: in Ten Pictures ⭐ – BBC Two, 9pm

This is the pick of the night and it’s not especially close. The Life in Ten Pictures format until now has worked with figures who are dead and generally well-loved: Freddie Mercury, Nelson Mandela. Turning it on someone still alive and regarded by much of the world as a war criminal is a genuinely different proposition.

Ten photographs of Vladimir Putin, taken apart. The 1985 Stasi ID card from his East Germany posting, before anyone outside the KGB had much reason to know his name. A school photo — not particularly warm-looking even then. The shirtless-on-horseback image, which one contributor describes as looking like “a melted cowboy”, which is both accurate and funny. A businessman who had meetings with Putin when he was a fixer for the mayor of St Petersburg in the 1990s remembers him as someone who always gave the impression he had better things to do with his time.

The detail about the bunkers stays with you. Putin has replicas of his Kremlin office built in various locations so that nobody outside a very small circle can ever be certain where he actually is. It’s the kind of fact that seems operationally logical and deeply strange in equal measure. All episodes on BBC iPlayer.

A Taste for Murder – ITV1, 9pm (SERIES FINALE)

Joe Mottram has always felt like a man on borrowed time in Capri, and tonight he’s handing the clock back. The series has been making a point about grief-stricken detectives — Joe’s situation mirrors that of Robbie Lewis, both having lost their wives in hit-and-run accidents, both using the work as a reason to keep moving. The randomness of those crimes was never going to survive the kind of scrutiny a detective applies to everything else in their life, and tonight Sofia’s death gets revisited properly. Full series on ITVX.

Taskmaster – Channel 4, 9pm

Series 21. Alex Horne has found a new task based on The Jingling Match, an 18th-century parlour game in which blindfolded players tried to catch someone wearing a suit of bells. The updated version puts Horne in the suit; contestants try to capture his image rather than the man himself. Greg Davies watches all of this from his throne with what appears to be growing incredulity. C4 streaming.

One to One: John and Yoko – Sky Documentaries, 9pm

In 1972 John Lennon and Yoko Ono headlined a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in aid of Willowbrook State School, a Staten Island institution for children with intellectual disabilities. Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, Whitney) and co-director Sam Rice-Edwards built a 2024 documentary around it. The bones of the concert footage are good, but the genuinely surprising material comes from a box of audio recordings that the Lennon Estate handed over — private phone calls between John and Yoko, never previously used.

Macdonald describes them as the couple “unguarded, the real them” and says the experience felt like eavesdropping. There’s a quality to overheard material that produced footage doesn’t have. A warm look at their post-Beatles life and the political focus of their years in New York. Available on Now.

The Hardacres – Channel 5, 9pm

Sam Hardacre (Liam McMahon) is ill enough that wife Mary (Claire Cooper) has quietly let most of the staff go and is managing the information about how serious things are very carefully. Only tutor Mr Lewis (Edward Mitchell) and housekeeper Mrs Dryden (Ingrid Craigie) are still in the house. Lady Imelda Hansen (Michele Dotrice) reads the situation correctly and begins working out how to use it. Son Joe (Adam Little) has put the family’s money into a new canning machine on something close to a hunch. Three things happening simultaneously, none of them good. 5 streaming.

Reported Missing – BBC One, 9pm

Tonight’s cases: a missing 16-year-old in Glasgow, and an 18-year-old who disappeared after being discharged from hospital. The police search in real time, which gives Reported Missing a tension that reconstructed crime documentaries rarely manage. BBC iPlayer.

Make That Movie – Channel 4, 10pm and 10:30pm (NEW SERIES)

Sam Campbell exists in a creative register entirely his own, and if you’ve followed his Taskmaster appearances or his stint on Last One Laughing UK (Prime Video) you’ll already know that. This new show is nominally a fictional reality format in which a director turns people’s film ideas into actual films. In practice it’s something harder to describe.

Tonight’s opening two-parter: Mick (played by Kim Noble, who is himself a very particular comedian) wants Campbell to make a film about a man and a woman who alternate between human and snake form. There’s a line early on — “Some people don’t belong on the screen. Some people should exist without any evidence.” — that could be the show’s thesis or could be something that will make sense later. Full series on C4 streaming.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

• BBC iPlayer: Putin: in Ten Pictures (full series), EastEnders, MasterChef, Reported Missing, Marilyn Monroe Night (all programmes)
• ITVX: A Taste for Murder (full series)
• Channel 4 streaming: Taskmaster, George Clarke’s Beautiful Builds, Make That Movie (full series)
• 5 streaming: Cornwall: a Year by the Sea, The Hardacres
• Now: One to One: John and Yoko, Classic Movies: the Story of Mulholland Drive, Mulholland Drive (film)
• TNT Sports / discovery+: French Open, Giro d’Italia (subscription required)
• Sky Sports: Women’s T20 Cricket: England v India (subscription required)

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Thursday 28 May 2026)?

Yes — BBC One at 7:30pm. EastEnders runs Monday to Thursday, so Thursday is the last episode of the week. Tonight Ross Marshall confronts Vicki Fowler about Zack Hudson on what was supposed to be their wedding day. Vicki has form when it comes to drama, and this one is apparently spectacular. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

What time is Putin in Ten Pictures on BBC Two tonight?

BBC Two at 9pm (Thursday 28 May 2026). The Life in Ten Pictures documentary series profiles Vladimir Putin through ten key photographs, from a 1985 Stasi ID card to the shirtless horseback image. Insights from someone who knew him before the world did. All episodes on BBC iPlayer.

What time is A Taste for Murder on ITV1 tonight?

The series finale is on ITV1 at 9pm tonight (Thursday 28 May 2026). Joe Mottram’s time in Capri comes to an end and the question of how Sofia died is finally examined properly. Full series on ITVX.

What time is One to One John and Yoko on tonight?

Sky Documentaries at 9pm (Thursday 28 May 2026). Kevin Macdonald’s 2024 documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1972 New York charity concert, built around newly discovered private phone call recordings provided by the Lennon Estate. Available on Now.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Thursday 28 May 2026)?

Putin: in Ten Pictures on BBC Two at 9pm is the clear pick — the A Life in Ten Pictures format breaking new ground, the Stasi card image alone justifies watching. One to One: John and Yoko on Sky Documentaries at 9pm is the warm alternative, with Lennon recordings that make you feel like you’re in the room. If you’ve been following A Taste for Murder, the finale on ITV1 at 9pm wraps things up properly. And EastEnders at 7:30pm has a wedding that doesn’t survive contact with Walford.

Final Verdict

Putin: in Ten Pictures on BBC Two at 9pm. The Life in Ten Pictures series has done good work with the dead and beloved; pointing it at someone alive, in power, and largely loathed feels like a significant gear change, and it delivers. On BBC Two, 9pm, all episodes on iPlayer.

One to One: John and Yoko on Sky Documentaries at 9pm is the night’s other genuine find. Kevin Macdonald, newly discovered recordings, 1972 New York — put it on after A Taste for Murder wraps up on ITV1. And if you’ve missed Sam Campbell’s particular strain of surreal comedy, Make That Movie on Channel 4 from 10pm is as good a place to start as any.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight Thursday | What’s On TV Tonight Wed 27 May 2026 | What’s On TV Tonight Fri 29 May 2026