TV Guide UK Tonight: Weds 22 Apr 2026 – Saint-Pierre, MasterChef Quarter-Final & Burnley v Man City

Published: 21 April 2026

Tonight’s TV highlights (Wednesday 22 April 2026): Saint-Pierre premieres on U&Alibi at 9pm with Joséphine Jobert, Allan Hawco and James Purefoy. Making a Maestro launches on Sky Arts at 8pm. MasterChef’s first heats wrap on BBC One at 9pm before Thursday’s quarter-final. Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy ends on BBC Two at 9pm. Grayson Perry Has Seen the Future concludes on Channel 4 at 9pm. Burnley v Manchester City kicks off at 8pm on Sky Sports Main Event.

Wednesday leans hard on the new starts. Saint-Pierre premieres on U&Alibi at 9pm, with Joséphine Jobert swapping Saint Marie for a French archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland alongside Allan Hawco and James Purefoy. Making a Maestro launches on Sky Arts at 8pm, following twenty young conductors competing for a London Symphony Orchestra post. MasterChef wraps up its first heats on BBC One at 9pm before tomorrow’s quarter-final, and Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy ends its three-parter on BBC Two at the same time. Grayson Perry Has Seen the Future concludes on Channel 4, and Burnley host Manchester City at 8pm on Sky Sports.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• Saint-Pierre ⭐ — U&Alibi, 9pm — Series premiere. Joséphine Jobert, Allan Hawco and James Purefoy. Proper cold-climate detective telly
• Making a Maestro — Sky Arts, 8pm — New series. The Donatella Flick LSO conducting competition. MasterClef, basically, and a good watch
• MasterChef — BBC One, 9pm — Signature dishes, undercooked chicken and three former champions judging. Quarter-finals start tomorrow
• Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy — BBC Two, 9pm — Last of three. The 2009 collapse and everything that came after
• Grayson Perry Has Seen the Future — Channel 4, 9pm — Part two. San Francisco, lasers, and “feudalism with better marketing”
• Burnley v Manchester City — Sky Sports Main Event, 8pm — Premier League. Guardiola has never lost to Burnley. Draw your own conclusions
• EastEnders — BBC One, 7:30pm — Max and Cindy moment, Ravi finally gets help, Lauren and Mark team up

What’s New Tonight

Two new starts land on Wednesday 22 April 2026:

• Saint-Pierre — U&Alibi, 9pm — Series premiere. Joséphine Jobert (ex-Death in Paradise) plays Deputy Chief Geneviève “Arch” Archambault, newly posted from Paris to the French archipelago south of Newfoundland. Allan Hawco is Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Inspector Donny Fitzpatrick; James Purefoy plays a shifty local resident. Catch up via NOW.
• Making a Maestro — Sky Arts, 8pm — New series following the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, filmed December 2025. Twenty young conductors from across Europe get 15 minutes each in the opening round to impress a jury chaired by Sir Antonio Pappano, competing for a one-year junior post at the London Symphony Orchestra. Catch up via NOW.

What’s Ending Tonight

Three series sign off on Wednesday 22 April 2026:

• Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy — BBC Two, 9pm — Final episode of the three-part documentary. Covers how Jackson ended up $500 million in debt by 2009, the planned London residency at the O2, and his death from an overdose. His estate is now reportedly worth $2 billion. Full series on BBC iPlayer.
• Egypt with Dan Snow — Channel 5, 9pm — Last in series. Dan Snow wraps his travelogue in Cairo (population 23 million), visiting the Great Pyramid at Giza and the medieval Old City, stopping for a sand-heated Nile coffee along the way. Catch up via 5 streaming.
• The Murder Line — ITV1, midnight — Series finale. A surprise arrival triggers a dangerous confrontation. Some regions may carry a different episode; check local listings. Catch up via ITVX.

Early Evening

EastEnders – BBC One, 7:30pm

Wednesday’s half-hour lines up four separate strands and spends about seven minutes on each. Max and Cindy share a moment, which on this show is never a moment that stays small. Ravi, who has been visibly struggling for weeks, finally gets the help he needs, which feels overdue. Lauren and Mark team up on a new plan, and Sam gives Mark an idea, which you suspect is the thing that carries into Thursday. Functional midweek episode that moves pieces around the board. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Prime Time

The Repair Shop – BBC One, 8pm

A proper variety week at the barn. A retro Japanese pachinko machine arrives, along with the football used at the 1963 Scottish Cup Final, a Cretan lyra (the lute-like stringed instrument) and a morale-boosting “magazine” made by a Japanese prisoner of war. The magazine is the star of the hour, a real example of the kind of handmade object that turns up on this show and quietly reframes the entire episode.

The pinball story is the one that stays with you. The machine, which makes a sound like its name, hasn’t worked in years. The ball is deflated and tatty, the book splintered. The owner died of motor neurone disease aged 31. His mother, watching the work being done, says seeing the machine whole again would feel like seeing him whole again. The Repair Shop continues to be quietly the best thing BBC One does on a Wednesday. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Making a Maestro – Sky Arts, 8pm (NEW SERIES)

What does an orchestral conductor actually do? That’s the honest question Sky Arts’ new series opens with, and to answer it, the programme follows the 18th Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, filmed in December 2025 at the LSO’s London home. Twenty conductors arrive from across Europe. In the first round they get fifteen minutes each to impress the jury, chaired by Sir Antonio Pappano. The prize at the end is £15,000 and a one-year junior post with the orchestra.

This is, as Radio Times’ David Butcher puts it, a little like MasterChef with batons. Not enough time to do anything properly, but enough time to get invested in three or four of the young hopefuls quickly. It’s also a useful watch for anyone with a casual interest in classical music: the jury’s notes explain exactly what separates a technically adequate conductor from one the orchestra will actually follow. As a study in leadership, expression and pure presence, it’s quietly fascinating. King Charles III, who has supported the competition for 35 years, also turns up later in the run. Catch up via NOW.

Warship: Life in the Navy – Channel 5, 8pm

Kate Humble boards HMS Iron Duke and joins the 200-strong crew for the week. JJ Chalmers takes a land-based strand and heads out onto Dartmoor. Channel 5 has been quietly good at this kind of embedded factual for years, and Humble is a reliable presence on board. Worth a look. Catch up via 5 streaming.

Emmerdale – ITV1, 8pm

Soaps hour opens in the Dales. Catch up via ITVX.

Coronation Street – ITV1, 8:30pm

Tonight’s half-hour is set on the eve of Carla and Lisa’s wedding, and disaster hits early. Lisa’s estranged wife Becky resurfaces after four years in witness protection and tries to spirit her family away to Spain for what she frames as a fresh start. The wedding is briefly cancelled. Ryan steadies Lisa and argues that opulence isn’t the point of any of this after what they’ve been through, which is a fair argument at the end of a weekend like theirs.

Thanks to February’s flash-forward, we already know the reception culminates in a Weatherfield villain’s murder. This is the soap operating at full tilt, setting the pieces up while knowing full well where it’s going to land. Delicious. Catch up via ITVX.

9pm: A Lot to Choose From

Saint-Pierre ⭐ – U&Alibi, 9pm (NEW SERIES)

The best new drama of the night, and possibly the week. Joséphine Jobert, the longest-serving lead of Death in Paradise’s rotating cast, here swaps Saint Marie for the tiny French archipelago of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, a little cluster of islands just off the coast of Newfoundland that happens to still be legally part of France. She plays Deputy Chief Geneviève “Arch” Archambault, newly posted from Paris after some unexplained trouble back home. Her reluctant local partner is Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Inspector Donny “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, played by Allan Hawco, who has also been quietly exiled to the coast after a scandal of his own.

The look of it is the first thing you notice. Pastel houses, grey water, small-town quiet. It’s the kind of place where everyone already knows who’s done what, and part of Arch’s problem is that nobody wants to tell her. The chemistry between Jobert and Hawco runs on eyerolls and cutting asides rather than fireworks, which is the smarter choice this early in a series. James Purefoy turns up as a shifty local, and he’s having more fun than anyone else on screen.

The opening case is quiet rather than gripping, and that’s a choice rather than a flaw. Saint-Pierre isn’t trying to be the next big twisty thriller. It’s trying to be a handsome, well-paced, character-driven procedural with a proper sense of place. On the evidence of episode one, it’s succeeding. Catch up via NOW.

MasterChef – BBC One, 9pm

The new batch of amateurs lean into big flavours and unusual combinations for their signature dishes, which prompts Grace Dent and Anna Haugh to admit to camera, with a slightly pained half-smile, that they are worried. They’re right to be. In the next round, one cook completely mucks up their mash and another serves undercooked chicken. The gamble does not always pay off.

Despite all that, the pair are genuinely impressed with the overall standard. Grace almost drools at one dish. Anna goes wide-eyed at another. Guest judges for the remaining four’s two-course task are former MasterChef champions Jane Devonshire and Eddie Scott, joined by finalist Alexina Anatole, which is a nice touch of continuity across eras. The first quarter-final airs tomorrow. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy – BBC Two, 9pm (LAST EPISODE)

Final part of the three-hour documentary, and the hardest to watch. After two decades of relentless scrutiny, a series of catastrophic decisions had left Jackson $500 million in debt and his reputation in ruins by 2009. The planned London residency at the O2 was meant to reset all of that. What happened instead was an overdose, a physician later convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and the start of an afterlife in which his estate is now reportedly worth $2 billion.

Seventeen years on, the documentary closes on the battle between those who view Jackson as a sexual predator and those who view him as a victim. The film itself is scrupulous about not telling the viewer what to think. His legacy, as the closing narration has it, remains unique in ways both awe-inspiring and awful. It’s the right place to leave it. Full series on BBC iPlayer.

Egypt with Dan Snow – Channel 5, 9pm (LAST IN SERIES)

Snow wraps up his travelogue in Cairo, a city of roughly 23 million people. He’s absolutely the tallest person in any of the street scenes, and he leans into it cheerfully. There’s a sand-heated coffee by the Nile, a sweaty excursion into the Great Pyramid at Giza, a respite stop at a hotel in the Old City and a recommendation to come back and spend proper time there. The series has been leisurely throughout and signs off the same way. Catch up via 5 streaming.

Grayson Perry Has Seen the Future – Channel 4, 9pm

Part two of Perry’s two-episode tour of the AI industry, still in San Francisco, and the hour delivers the series’ best line. A former Facebook executive explains that the commercial tide of AI is pulling society towards “feudalism with better marketing”. Perry doesn’t quite disagree, but he clings to a small, quiet optimism about it all. His closing riposte — be quirkily human, be creative, we may stay a step ahead — is the kind of line that sounds twee but isn’t, because Perry has spent the hour earning it.

Along the way, he meets engineers developing lasers that can shoot down drones, robots designed to teach children social skills, and a woman who describes the male-dominated tech industry as “a cashmere prison”. Back home, he draws an artwork in his usual mode to process the trip. Bright, funny, not scared. Catch up via C4 streaming.

The ‘Burbs – Sky One, 9pm

A chilling revelation about one neighbour comes to light and flips everyone’s life upside down. On Sky One tonight, catch up via NOW.

Late Night

Twenty Twenty Six – BBC Two, 10pm

John Morton’s sequel to W1A and Twenty Twelve, tucked on to linear at 10pm after arriving on iPlayer as a full boxset on 8 April. Hugh Bonneville is back as Ian Fletcher, now Head of Integrity for the Twenty Twenty Six Oversight team ahead of the men’s World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico. Hugh Skinner returns as the terminally hapless Will Humphries, who this week takes a marketing campaign far too literally. Ian also has the start of a gentle romance with sustainability expert Sarah.

The format is exactly what you think it is, which is both its strength and the limit of it. Once you know everyone, the comic momentum keeps building, but the formulaic rhythm has become too obvious for its own good. That said, if you’ve got any affection at all for the previous series, this one delivers. Full series on BBC iPlayer. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

The Assembly – ITV1, 10:05pm

Series two wraps up with rapper Aitch in the guest chair opposite the autistic, neurodivergent and learning-disabled panel. The regular interviewer Caroline, who last year caught Stephen Fry off guard by asking about his drugs at Buckingham Palace, is back and very much on form. Assembly sessions usually include poetry, music and mischief, which seems like Aitch’s natural territory. Unless Caroline has other ideas. Catch up via ITVX.

The Murder Line – ITV1, 12 midnight (SERIES FINALE)

Things reach breaking point. A surprise arrival triggers a dangerous confrontation. Some regions may carry a different episode, so check your local listings before setting the recorder. Catch up via ITVX.

Sport

Football: Burnley v Manchester City – Sky Sports Main Event, 8pm (k/o 8pm)

A Premier League fixture at Turf Moor that ought to be a straightforward three points for the visitors but rarely is. Burnley sit 19th with 20 points, deep in relegation trouble and coming off a 4-1 loss at Nottingham Forest. Manchester City are second on 67 points and won 2-1 against Arsenal last time out. The head-to-head record tells you everything: Pep Guardiola has faced Burnley 19 times, won 18 and drawn one. The last meeting finished 5-1. Kick-off 8pm on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League.

Snooker: World Snooker Championship – BBC Two, TNT Sports

Day five at the Crucible. First-round matches complete across BBC Two from 10am and 1pm, with TNT Sports 3 at 6:30pm and TNT Sports 1 and 3 sharing coverage from 7pm. BBC Four covers the evening session. Every frame is also on BBC iPlayer.

Tennis: Madrid Open – Sky Sports Main Event/Tennis, 10am

Day two of the clay-court tournament in Madrid. Live rounds all day on Sky Sports Tennis.

IPL Cricket: Lucknow Super Giants v Rajasthan Royals – Sky Sports Cricket, 2:50pm

Indian Premier League action from India, live on Sky Sports Cricket.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

BBC iPlayer: EastEnders, The Repair Shop, MasterChef, Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy, Twenty Twenty Six (full series)
ITVX: Emmerdale, Coronation Street, The Assembly, The Murder Line
Channel 4 streaming: Grayson Perry Has Seen the Future
5 streaming: Warship: Life in the Navy, Egypt with Dan Snow
NOW: Saint-Pierre, Making a Maestro, The ‘Burbs (Entertainment membership)
Sky Sports / NOW Sports: Burnley v Manchester City

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight (Wednesday 22 April 2026)?

Yes, EastEnders is on BBC One at 7:30pm tonight. Max and Cindy share a moment, Ravi finally gets the help he needs, Lauren and Mark team up, and Sam gives Mark an idea. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

What time is Saint-Pierre on TV tonight?

Saint-Pierre premieres on U&Alibi at 9pm tonight (Wednesday 22 April 2026). Joséphine Jobert stars as Deputy Chief Geneviève Archambault, paired with Allan Hawco’s Inspector Donny Fitzpatrick in the French archipelago of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland. James Purefoy features. Catch up via NOW.

What time is MasterChef on BBC One tonight?

MasterChef is on BBC One at 9pm tonight (Wednesday 22 April 2026). Amateur cooks serve signature dishes and a two-course meal judged by former champions Jane Devonshire and Eddie Scott, plus finalist Alexina Anatole. The first quarter-final airs tomorrow. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Is Burnley v Manchester City on TV tonight?

Yes. Burnley v Manchester City is live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League tonight (Wednesday 22 April 2026) from Turf Moor. Kick-off 8pm. Sky Sports subscription or NOW Sports pass required.

What time is Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy on BBC Two tonight?

The final episode of Michael Jackson: an American Tragedy is on BBC Two at 9pm tonight (Wednesday 22 April 2026). It covers the 2009 collapse, $500 million in debts, the planned London residency and his death. The full series is on BBC iPlayer.

What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Wednesday 22 April 2026)?

Saint-Pierre on U&Alibi at 9pm is the pick of the night: a proper cold-climate detective drama with Joséphine Jobert, Allan Hawco and James Purefoy. MasterChef rolls on at 9pm on BBC One ahead of tomorrow’s first quarter-final, and Making a Maestro launches on Sky Arts at 8pm. For sport, Burnley v Manchester City kicks off at 8pm on Sky Sports Main Event.

What’s on Channel 4 tonight (Wednesday 22 April 2026)?

Grayson Perry Has Seen the Future is on Channel 4 at 9pm — the second and final part of Perry’s tour of the AI industry in San Francisco. He meets engineers developing lasers that can shoot down drones and robots designed to teach children social skills. A former Facebook executive describes the commercial tide of AI as “feudalism with better marketing”. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.

Is there any comedy on TV tonight?

Twenty Twenty Six is on BBC Two at 10pm. John Morton’s sequel to W1A and Twenty Twelve stars Hugh Bonneville as Ian Fletcher, now Head of Integrity for the Twenty Twenty Six Oversight team ahead of the men’s FIFA World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico. Hugh Skinner returns as Will Humphries. The full series has been on BBC iPlayer since 8 April.

Final Verdict

Saint-Pierre earns the star tonight. A good-looking new procedural with a lead who already knows exactly how to carry this kind of show, an interesting location, and enough character texture in the first hour to justify giving it a proper run. If you liked Death in Paradise but wanted something a bit colder and a bit more adult, this is the one.

Making a Maestro at 8pm on Sky Arts is the other real find. Sky Arts has a knack for this format, and twenty conductors with fifteen minutes each to impress an LSO jury is exactly the sort of specific competitive set-up that ends up being compulsive.

MasterChef continues to settle into its new-judges era with the quiet confidence of a show that has finally stopped being the story. Tomorrow’s quarter-final is the one to watch, but tonight’s build-up is solid.

And for football fans, Burnley v Manchester City is a fixture the bookies have already decided. Whether Turf Moor can do anything about that is the only question.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight Wednesday | What’s On TV Tonight Tues 21 Apr 2026 | What’s On TV Tonight Thurs 23 Apr 2026