TV Guide UK Tonight: Wed 2 Sept 2026 – Stolen Babies, Professor T & The Repair Shop

Published: 29 August 2026

Wednesday 2 September 2026. BBC Two gives the 9pm hour to one of the worst chapters of recent British social history, ITV1 brings Professor T back for a second episode, and BBC One starts a new Repair Shop spin-off that goes out to see what happened next. BBC Four closes its Rome season. EastEnders is on at 7.30pm.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• Stolen Babies BBC Two, 9pm. 250,000 women, and a cloak of shame that never lifted.
• Professor T ITV1, 9pm. A stabbed inspector, and Ingrid starts digging.
• The Repair Shop: Beyond the Barn BBC One, 8pm. New series, and it follows the objects home.
• Bookish U&Alibi, 8pm. Two episodes, one confession nobody should believe.
• EastEnders is on tonight — BBC One, 7.30pm.

Early Evening

Celebrity Antiques Road Trip – BBC Two, 7pm

DJs Nihal Arthanayake and Dev Griffin swap the studio for the salerooms of the south east in a Jaguar XK8, which is at least a better car than the format usually manages.

EastEnders – BBC One, 7.30pm

Nicola softens and makes peace, Ravi keeps pulling at what he suspects, and the lights go out on Linda’s community centre event at the worst possible moment.

Emmerdale – ITV1, 8pm

An arrival knocks the village sideways, something is clearly weighing on Gabby, and Vinny lets Kev in on his plan. Coronation Street follows at 8.30pm, with Idris confronting Ronnie about his car and Jodie finally asking Kit out.

The Repair Shop: Beyond the Barn – BBC One, 8pm

The standing frustration with The Repair Shop is that it ends at the handover — the tears, the thank-yous, and then nothing. This spin-off answers the obvious follow-up: what did they do with it? Did it change anything? Mark Stuckey’s handmade K-9, built by a fan and long since disobedient, comes back into view, along with a battered attaché case connected to Winston Churchill’s cook and a misshapen piece of millinery with a glam rock provenance. Suzie Fletcher, Jayesh Vaghela and Julyan Wallis all revisit their own work. Warm, and a bit more curious than the parent show. Not shown in Scotland.

Inside the Factory – BBC Two, 8pm

Paddy McGuinness follows potato starch through the machinery that turns it into 500 million packets of Quavers a year, which is exactly the sort of number this programme exists to deliver.

Kirstie and Phil’s Love It or List It: Brilliant Builds – Channel 4, 8pm

A retrospective on the ones that got away — the problems that could not be designed out, including a sloping garden that beat everyone who looked at it. Channel 4 at 8pm.

Bookish – U&Alibi, 8pm

Two episodes, at 8pm and 9.10pm, and the budget has clearly stretched this year: Gabriel Book gets out of Archangel Lane and into a tailor’s shop in the Burlington Arcade. The proprietor has confessed to murder, which Book treats as the least interesting fact available, and he begins unpicking the statement in front of the man who made it. Some genuinely menacing heavies turn up, of a kind The Avengers would have been happy with, and Book lays out a trail of clues that will solve the case if anyone bothers to follow it.

The Chelsea Detective – Drama, 8pm

A double bill on Drama, running to 10pm, with DI Max Arnold working cases among people who keep solicitors on retainer.

The Dukes of Hazzard – Legend, 6pm

The General Lee, the horn, Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco, and a great deal of misty-eyed 1980s Saturday-evening nonsense. Legend at 6pm.

Prime Time

Stolen Babies – BBC Two, 9pm ⭐

Between 1950 and 1976 something in the region of 250,000 unmarried women in this country were pressured by the state into giving up their newborn babies. The film sets out how that worked in practice. The women were treated as unfit, feeble-minded and morally suspect; decisions were made for them and nothing was explained; there was no compassion offered and no alternative presented. Their children were processed as commodities.

What lifts it above outrage is the restraint. The mothers describe the homes, the coercion and the degradation in their own time, and are never cut for pace or reaction. The children who were removed speak too, and the scars run in both directions. Researchers have found contributors who have never gone on record before, twenty-five years on from the first attempts to tell this story. The phrase one of them uses about the shame that still hangs over all of it is the line the film is built on. Also on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC Scotland, and at 11.05pm in Wales.

Professor T – ITV1, 9pm

A burglar the police can already name puts a knife into a school inspector mid-break-in; the difficulty is getting to him before he does it again. That is the surface case. Running underneath, and much more interesting, is Ingrid’s private inquiry into Jasper’s parentage, which starts with an old photograph of a young Dean standing next to Adelaide. She wants a DNA sample from the Dean. Getting one turns out to be considerably harder than arresting a burglar. Peter Ustinov used the same trick in Evil under the Sun, and whether or not it is a deliberate nod it works.

The Game – Channel 5, 9pm

Huw is retired from the police and behaving very much like a detective, right down to turning up in full forensic gear at a site Patrick claims contains his first victim. What they find is worse than what they were told. We also learn how Patrick has been managing to write the story from a prison cell — and the effect on Huw’s terrified daughter is what finally pushes the ex-copper over a line he cannot come back from. Channel 5 at 9pm.

The Jury: 14 and on Trial for Murder – Channel 4, 9pm

Daniel, 14 at the time of the killing, takes the stand to give his account, and then the CCTV is played. It does not match. Watching sympathetic jurors quietly revise their position is the whole value of this series.

Celebrity MasterChef – BBC One, 9pm

Two more challenges and a quarter-final place at stake, with Morgan Burtwistle — better known online as Angry Ginge — in the kitchen. He went viral in 2021 for a rant about ordering chips on a night out, so a French menu was always going to be interesting.

Roman Empire by Train with Alice Roberts – More4, 9pm

Roberts is in Nîmes, where the Roman survivals are as good as anything outside Rome itself, before moving on to Narbonne and taking a train into Spain. It runs directly against BBC Four’s Rome evening again, which is either a scheduling accident or somebody’s idea of a joke. More4 at 9pm.

Rome’s Invisible City – BBC Four, 9pm

Alexander Armstrong underground, in the aqueducts and drains that actually made the city function. Part of a Rome season that ends tonight with the last two episodes of I, Claudius from 10pm.

Elsewhere at 9pm: E4 has an unusually explosive Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, Film4 shows Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Yesterday has Explore with Simon Reeve after Michael Palin at 8pm, Quest has The Yorkshire Auction House and ITV3 runs Midsomer Murders from 8pm with Lewis at 10pm.

Late Night

I, Claudius – BBC Four, from 10pm

The last two episodes of the 1976 series, fifty years old this year and still the benchmark. Claudius has no idea what Messalina is doing, which is agony to watch, and the final hour hands the whole thing over to the question of what happens to Rome next.

9/11: Days That Shocked the World – Channel 4, from 10pm

Two parts back to back. Rescue workers, survivors and witnesses give their accounts, several of them for the first time, of a morning that started completely normally.

WhatsApp Obsession: The Murder of Stephanie Hansen – ITV1, 10.45pm

Stephanie Hansen was 39 when she was killed at home in London in December 2022. The documentary follows what detectives uncovered about the months leading up to it.

Couples Therapy – BBC Two, 11.05pm

Two more sessions, and Dr Orna Guralnik’s patience remains the most remarkable thing on television. Shay confronts Clinton over his online infidelities, and Chris and Sienna finally get to something real underneath a row about the terms of their open relationship. She never judges, and she cuts through more effectively than anyone shouting would. Also at 11.30pm; in Wales the pair run tomorrow at 11pm and 11.25pm.

The Da Vinci Code – 5Star, 9pm

Tom Hanks, an anagram and a great deal of running about in European churches.

Sport

Burnley host Middlesbrough in the Championship, kick-off 8pm, coverage from 7.30pm on Sky Sports Main Event. Day four of the US Open is on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Tennis from 3.30pm, with further coverage from 10.30pm. The men’s Tour of Britain begins with stage one, 182.5km starting and finishing in Lincoln, live on TNT Sports 1 from 10.30am. Day three of the British Open snooker from Cheltenham is on Channel 5 from 12.30pm. ITV4 has Tour of Britain highlights at 8pm and EFL highlights at 11.35pm.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

• BBC iPlayer: EastEnders, The Repair Shop: Beyond the Barn, Inside the Factory, Celebrity MasterChef, Stolen Babies, Rome: A History of the Eternal City, I, Claudius, Couples Therapy
• ITVX: Professor T, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Millionaire Hot Seat
• Channel 4 streaming: The Jury: 14 and on Trial for Murder, 9/11: Days That Shocked the World, Love It or List It, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA
• 5: The Game, Call the Bailiffs, A&E: Crash Scene Emergency
• U: Bookish, The Chelsea Detective

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Wednesday 2 September 2026)?

Yes. EastEnders is on BBC One at 7.30pm in its usual Wednesday slot, before The Repair Shop: Beyond the Barn at 8pm and Celebrity MasterChef at 9pm. Nicola softens and makes peace, Ravi keeps pulling at what he suspects, and the lights go out on Linda’s community centre event. It’s on iPlayer straight afterwards.

What is Stolen Babies on BBC Two about?

Stolen Babies is on BBC Two at 9pm, and at 11.05pm in Wales. Between 1950 and 1976 around 250,000 unmarried women in the UK were pressured by the state into giving up their babies for adoption. The mothers describe the homes and the coercion they faced, and the children who were taken speak too. Researchers found several contributors who had never spoken publicly before.

What happens in Professor T tonight?

Professor T is on ITV1 at 9pm with an episode called The Inspection. A burglar the police can already name puts a knife into a school inspector mid-break-in, and while Jasper works the raids, Ingrid quietly investigates his parentage after finding an old photograph of a much younger Dean with Jasper’s mother Adelaide.

What live sport is on TV tonight: Wednesday 2 September 2026?

Burnley v Middlesbrough in the Championship kicks off at 8pm on Sky Sports Main Event, coverage from 7.30pm. Day four of the US Open is on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Tennis from 3.30pm and again from 10.30pm. Stage one of the Tour of Britain, 182.5km around Lincoln, is on TNT Sports 1 from 10.30am, and day three of the British Open snooker is on Channel 5 from 12.30pm.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Wednesday 2 September 2026)?

Stolen Babies on BBC Two at 9pm. Professor T on ITV1 and The Game on Channel 5 are the drama alternatives in the same slot, and Bookish begins a double bill on U&Alibi at 8pm.

What is The Repair Shop: Beyond the Barn?

A new eight-part series on BBC One at 8pm, not shown in Scotland. The craftspeople visit owners at home to find out what happened to the things they restored. Tonight covers a handmade Doctor Who K-9, a leather case linked to Winston Churchill’s cook and a piece of glam rock millinery.

What’s on BBC Four tonight?

BBC Four ends its Rome season: the last part of Rome: A History of the Eternal City at 8pm, Rome’s Invisible City at 9pm, and the final two episodes of I, Claudius from 10pm.

What time is Coronation Street on tonight?

Coronation Street is on ITV1 at 8.30pm, after Emmerdale at 8pm and before Professor T at 9pm. Both are on ITVX afterwards.

Is Bookish on tonight?

Yes, two episodes on U&Alibi at 8pm and 9.10pm. Gabriel Book is called to a tailor’s shop in the Burlington Arcade where the proprietor has confessed to murder, and he starts taking the confession apart immediately. It streams on U afterwards.

Final Verdict

Stolen Babies is the programme of the week and the one that should be watched, however hard it is — a national scandal told without a single cheap move. Professor T and The Game split the drama vote at 9pm, and the Bookish double bill from 8pm is the most enjoyable thing on. The Repair Shop: Beyond the Barn is a sensible spin-off, and BBC Four’s Rome season goes out on the last two hours of I, Claudius. EastEnders is on at 7.30pm.

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