What's on TV tonight Sunday 24 May 2026? The evening headline is Dear England, BBC One's new drama from James Graham, who adapted his own Olivier Award-winning stage play. Joseph Fiennes plays Gareth Southgate. The cast includes Jodie Whittaker, Jason Watkins, and the full squad of actors playing the 2016 England dressing room. It's one of the more interesting commissioning decisions of the spring: a football drama that is actually about psychology and what it costs to publicly change how you think. Episodes 1 and 2 air on BBC One at 9pm and land on BBC iPlayer the same night. Episodes 3 and 4 follow on 31 May.

Before that, the entire Premier League season concludes simultaneously at 4pm on Sky Sports. Arsenal (82pts) can win the title at Crystal Palace. West Ham and Tottenham are fighting over the last relegation place. Not a quiet Final Day. After the drama closes, the Canadian Grand Prix races on Sky Sports F1 from 9pm, with Kimi Antonelli going for a fourth consecutive win in a sprint-format weekend that has already delivered on Saturday.

There is also a BBC Four documentary tonight that happens to be the anniversary of a death and a birth at once. Stanley Baxter was born on 24 May 1926. He died on 11 December 2025, aged 99. Being Stanley Baxter airs on BBC Four at 9pm -- on what would have been his 100th birthday.

Browse what's on right now for live updates, see tonight's full highlights, or go straight to the channels list -- including pages for BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports F1, TNT Sports 1, and TNT Sports 3. For yesterday's listings -- Death Valley premiere, the F1 sprint, the Championship Play-Off Final, and more -- see our Saturday 23 May 2026 TV guide.

What's on TV tonight: quick picks

  • Dear England (Eps 1 & 2) -- BBC One, 9pm -- NEW SERIES; Joseph Fiennes as Southgate; Jodie Whittaker as Pippa Grange; James Graham; Left Bank Pictures; Eps 1 & 2 on iPlayer same night; Eps 3 & 4 on BBC One + iPlayer 31 May
  • Premier League Final Day -- Sky Sports Main Event / Sky Sports Premier League, coverage 3pm, all 10 matches k/o 4pm -- LIVE; Arsenal (82pts) at Crystal Palace; title + relegation battle; West Ham v Leeds; Spurs v Everton
  • Death Valley (S2) -- BBC One, 8.15pm -- Timothy Spall; Melanie Walters; Gwyneth Keyworth; Roisin Conaty guest as pub landlady Karen; Mark Lewis Jones; Welsh fishing village; filmed Little Haven, Pembrokeshire
  • Being Stanley Baxter -- BBC Four, 9pm -- documentary profile; today is the 100th anniversary of his birth (24 May 1926); died 11 Dec 2025 aged 99
  • Vengeance: Murder on the Heath -- Channel 4, 9pm -- two-part factual drama Pt 1; Gagandip Singh murder 2011; Brighton; Mundill Mahil; concludes Mon 25 May
  • Obituary -- ITV1, 10.45pm -- UK PREMIERE; RTÉ/Hulu; Siobhán Cullen as obituary writer Elvira Clancy; full series on ITVX; darkly comic Irish crime; Dexter comparison
  • The 1% Club: Kids Special -- ITV1, 8pm -- Lee Mack hosts; 100 kids aged 9--15; prize: family trip to Walt Disney World Florida
  • Later... with Jools Holland -- BBC Two, 10pm -- Alexandra Palace Theatre; Joe Bonamassa headliner; James Blake; Ashley McBryde; Sekou; Jocelyn Brown; Mandy Indiana
  • Britain's Best Service Station -- Channel 5, 7pm -- JB Gill (JLS) tours UK motorway services; top 5 reveal; South Mimms = JLS favourite
  • The Assembly -- ITV1, 10pm -- Rylan Clark; neurodivergent and learning-disabled interviewers; Rylan: "honestly my favourite interview I've ever done"
  • Expedition with Steve Backshall -- BBC Two, 7.15pm -- volcanic underworld; Saudi Arabia; cave systems
  • Murdoch Mysteries -- U&Alibi, 7pm -- S19; alien abduction episode
  • Hudson and Rex -- U&Alibi, 8pm -- murder on a yacht; crypto wallet hex code mystery
  • Canadian Grand Prix -- Sky Sports F1 from 7.30pm, race 9pm -- Round 5; sprint weekend; Kimi Antonelli leads on 100pts; Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal
  • French Open Day 1 -- TNT Sports 1, from 9.30am -- Roland Garros main draw begins; full tournament 24 May -- 7 June
  • Giro d'Italia Stage 15 -- TNT Sports 3 from noon -- Voghera to Milano, 157km; bunch sprint; Milan--Sanremo finishing circuit

See what's on right now for live updates.

Tonight's TV schedule: full listings

Time Channel Programme
9.30am TNT Sports 1 + TNT Sports 4 French Open Day 1 LIVE -- Roland Garros; main draw begins; tournament runs 24 May--7 Jun
12.00pm TNT Sports 3 Giro d'Italia Stage 15 LIVE -- Voghera to Milano, 157km; bunch sprint; Milan--Sanremo circuit
3.00pm Sky Sports Main Event Premier League Final Day coverage start -- build-up to all 10 matches
4.00pm Sky Sports Main Event + Premier League Premier League Final Day ALL 10 MATCHES KICK OFF -- Arsenal title race; relegation decider
7.00pm Channel 5 Britain's Best Service Station -- JB Gill; top 5 reveal; South Mimms; motorway service tour
7.00pm U&Alibi Murdoch Mysteries S19 -- alien abduction episode
7.15pm BBC Two Expedition with Steve Backshall -- volcanic underworld; Saudi Arabia
7.30pm Sky Sports F1 Formula One: Canadian Grand Prix coverage start -- Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal
8.00pm ITV1 The 1% Club: Kids Special -- Lee Mack; 100 kids aged 9--15; prize Walt Disney World Florida
8.00pm Sky Sports Main Event Formula One: Canadian Grand Prix coverage -- also on Sky Sports Main Event
8.00pm U&Alibi Hudson and Rex -- murder on yacht; crypto wallet 64-digit hex code
8.15pm BBC One Death Valley S2 -- Timothy Spall; Melanie Walters; Gwyneth Keyworth; Roisin Conaty guest
9.00pm BBC One Dear England Ep 1 NEW SERIES -- Joseph Fiennes as Southgate; James Graham; Left Bank
9.00pm BBC Four Being Stanley Baxter -- documentary; 100th birthday (born 24 May 1926); died Dec 2025
9.00pm Channel 4 Vengeance: Murder on the Heath Pt 1 -- factual drama; Gagandip Singh murder 2011
9.00pm Sky Sports F1 Canadian Grand Prix RACE START -- 9pm BST / 4pm ET; Antonelli on 100pts; sprint weekend
10.00pm BBC Two Later... with Jools Holland -- Alexandra Palace; Joe Bonamassa; James Blake; Jocelyn Brown
10.00pm ITV1 The Assembly -- Rylan Clark; neurodivergent interviewers
10.45pm ITV1 Obituary Ep 1 UK PREMIERE -- Siobhán Cullen; RTÉ/Hulu; full series on ITVX
Now streaming BBC iPlayer Dear England Eps 1 & 2 -- available from tonight; Eps 3 & 4 land 31 May

Dear England -- BBC One, 9pm

Dear England, Series 1, Episodes 1 and 2, airs on BBC One from 9pm on Sunday 24 May 2026. NEW SERIES. Written by James Graham. Directed by Rupert Goold (Ep 1) and Paul Whittington (Eps 2--4). Cast: Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate, Jodie Whittaker as Pippa Grange, Jason Watkins as Greg Dyke, Daniel Ryan as Steve Holland. Left Bank Pictures. Episodes 1 and 2 on BBC iPlayer from tonight; Episodes 3 and 4 air on BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday 31 May.

James Graham wrote the stage version of Dear England for the National Theatre in 2023, and it won the Olivier Award for Best New Play. His description of the challenge in moving it to television is worth taking seriously. He talks about "intimacy, interiority, naturalism and authenticity": rewriting the play for what television can do that theatre cannot, rather than transplanting it. The camera can go inside the dressing room. It can hold a face in close-up while someone is saying something different with their eyes. The stage version played to an audience watching from a distance. The television version has nowhere to hide.

On one level the play and the series are about English football: Gareth Southgate inheriting the national team after the Iceland calamity at Euro 2016, and the long project of turning a squad trained to perform under constant self-scrutiny into one capable of something closer to collective confidence. But Graham's actual frame is psychology. Pippa Grange, the sports psychologist Southgate brought into the England setup, becomes the route into the bigger question: whether it is possible to change how a group of elite sportsmen relate to vulnerability and failure. That is a larger subject than football.

Joseph Fiennes brings something useful to Southgate. A contained authority that can tip either way depending on the scene. There is a version of Southgate who is quietly managing everything, and a version who is genuinely uncertain, and Fiennes plays both without announcing which one is in charge at any given moment. Episode 1 opens with FA chairman Greg Dyke (Jason Watkins, who has an instinct for men used to institutional power) being charmed into making Southgate permanent. The Iceland defeat hangs over the scene without being belaboured. Everyone in the room knows what the squad looked like coming home from that tournament, and the comedy is that Dyke is being persuaded to do something he probably already wanted to do.

The stage-to-screen challenge

Graham is specific about what had to change. A stage play about an England dressing room can operate through inference and what actors project across a distance. Television closes that gap. The players in the cast — Will Antenbring as Harry Kane, Adam Hugill as Harry Maguire, Josh Barrow as Jordan Pickford, Lewis Shepherd as Dele Alli, Sam Spruell as psychologist Mike Webster — are not doing impressions. They are building something more granular than that. The physical resemblance matters less than the psychological truth of the dynamic, and Graham's script trusts that the audience is interested in what went on in those rooms rather than in a celebrity impressions show.

Jodie Whittaker as Pippa Grange is probably the most consequential casting call in the series. Grange is the character through whom Graham examines what the drama is actually interested in: what vulnerability costs in a culture built on toughness, and what it takes to get a generation of English footballers comfortable saying things their predecessors were trained to suppress. Whittaker has the range. She doesn't play it with the gentleness a lesser interpretation might invite. There is something genuinely confrontational about Grange's approach, and Whittaker keeps that in the performance.

Rupert Goold directs Episode 1; Paul Whittington takes Episodes 2 through 4. Goold's work has a formal intelligence about where the camera needs to be to catch the thing the dialogue is not quite saying. For an opening episode covering negotiation, authority, and the first attempts to do something differently with a wounded squad, his register fits.

Episodes 1 and 2 tonight on BBC One from 9pm, with the same two episodes on BBC iPlayer from tonight. Episodes 3 and 4 broadcast on BBC One and land on iPlayer on Sunday 31 May.

Premier League Final Day -- Sky Sports, coverage 3pm, all matches k/o 4pm

All 10 Premier League matches kick off simultaneously at 4pm BST on Sunday 24 May 2026. Live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League. Coverage begins at 3pm. Two storylines: the title race and the final relegation place.

The title

Arsenal sit on 82 points with one match to play. They are at Crystal Palace. Manchester City are on 78 points and playing their own final fixture. Four points is the gap. City cannot win the title and Arsenal know it. A win at Selhurst Park is the cleanest outcome — it ends the season and the argument at the same time. A draw or a defeat does not change the arithmetic either; Arsenal still finish above City. But the league prefers a title-clinching moment to a title delivered via a calculator.

The top four is already confirmed: Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Aston Villa have all secured their Champions League places. Nothing changes there today regardless of results. The table's upper reaches are settled.

The relegation fight

Wolves and Burnley are already relegated. The third and final relegation place comes down to Tottenham (17th, 38 points, at home to Everton) and West Ham (18th, 36 points, at home to Leeds). The arithmetic is this: West Ham need to win and need Tottenham to lose. If Tottenham take a point from Everton, they are safe regardless. If Spurs lose and West Ham win, West Ham survive on goal difference or points -- this is essentially a simple scenario: Spurs losing and West Ham not winning means West Ham go down whatever the score elsewhere.

Tottenham hosting Everton is the more interesting tactical picture. Everton have had an erratic back half of the season and come into this fixture without clear survival or relegation stakes of their own -- they are comfortably mid-table -- which makes them a dangerous opponent in the way that sides without pressure sometimes are. Spurs need only a point. The pressure is not on Spurs to go out and win; it is on them not to panic.

West Ham at home to Leeds is more straightforward in terms of what is required: West Ham must win, and must then hope the Spurs result goes their way. Leeds are safe -- they have 43 points -- so the incentive from the Leeds side of the ledger is professional rather than existential.

All of this concludes simultaneously at 4pm. Sky Sports will carry multiple match feeds. On Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League from 3pm.

Death Valley -- BBC One, 8.15pm

Death Valley, Series 2, BBC One at 8.15pm. Timothy Spall as John Chapel, Melanie Walters as Yvonne Mallowan, Gwyneth Keyworth as DS Janie Mallowan. Guest cast: Roisin Conaty as pub landlady Karen; Mark Lewis Jones as a lifelong trawlerman. Set in a Welsh fishing village; filmed in Little Haven, Pembrokeshire.

The setup of Death Valley Series 2 needs a small correction to any synopsis that describes John as a man nursing a broken relationship. John is in a relationship. With Yvonne (Melanie Walters). The complication is Janie, Yvonne's daughter (Gwyneth Keyworth), who has strong opinions about the arrangement and does not particularly want her mother's partner in her orbit. John tolerates this with the patience of a man who knows he is on thin ice and is trying very hard not to crack it.

This week the investigation moves to a small Welsh fishing village, a suspicious death, and a cast of coastal characters whose relationship to the sea is considerably more authentic than John's. He owns a narrowboat. The narrowboat is permanently moored. He has absorbed the ambient language of boat ownership without ever having to cast off, which puts him in exactly the wrong conversational position when he meets a lifelong trawlerman (Mark Lewis Jones), who spots the difference between someone who boats and someone who talks about boating inside half a sentence. Mark Lewis Jones is very good at unimpressed.

Roisin Conaty as the pub landlady Karen is a casting note worth paying attention to. Conaty plays awkward social situations with an instinct for the gap between what someone is saying and what they mean, which works in a cosy crime context where the suspect list comes from a small community and almost everyone is performing a version of normal they have constructed carefully.

The Ludwig comparison is not unfair. Both shows operate on the same principle: the detective's relationship to the world around them is funnier and more interesting than the investigation, which ticks along in the background while the character comedy does the actual work. That is a British tradition in detective drama going back decades, and Death Valley is a comfortable addition to it.

On BBC One at 8.15pm. Available on BBC iPlayer.

Being Stanley Baxter -- BBC Four, 9pm

Being Stanley Baxter airs on BBC Four at 9pm on Sunday 24 May 2026. Today is the 100th anniversary of Stanley Baxter's birth. He was born on 24 May 1926 in Glasgow. He died on 11 December 2025, aged 99 -- four months short of his centenary.

Stanley Baxter was 99 when he died. He had been 99 for more than six months. The centenary was always going to happen on 24 May 2026; it arrived after he was already gone, which gives tonight's documentary the quality of a tribute that became posthumous in the final straight.

Baxter was Glasgow-born, trained in variety theatre, and built a television career as an actor, comedian and impressionist that ran from the early 1950s through to the 1990s. The Stanley Baxter Picture Show was the BBC prestige entertainment commission of its era — expensive, technically demanding, featuring Baxter in multiple characters and costumes per episode at a time when that required actual craft rather than digital shortcuts. He had an instinct for the grotesque that was always housed inside a completely controlled performance. That is the rarer combination.

The Glasgow years matter for the documentary's shape. Baxter came out of the Citizens Theatre and a Scottish variety tradition that was culturally distinct from the London entertainment world he moved into. The tension between those two backgrounds — the Glasgow sensibility and the BBC light-entertainment machine — was in his work throughout. His sexuality, which he discussed openly in his later years, adds another layer: the cost of a particular kind of professional life in the 1960s and 1970s, and what he made of it.

That he died aged 99 rather than 100 is the kind of near-miss a dramatist would find irresistible. BBC Four airing the documentary on the birthday he did not quite reach is the right programming decision for the date.

On BBC Four at 9pm. Available on BBC iPlayer.

Vengeance: Murder on the Heath -- Channel 4, 9pm

Vengeance: Murder on the Heath, Part 1 of 2, Channel 4 at 9pm on Sunday 24 May 2026. A factual drama about the February 2011 murder of Gagandip Singh, 21, a Sikh TV entrepreneur lured to a Brighton flat. Part 2 concludes Monday 25 May.

In February 2011, Gagandip Singh — 21 years old, working in the Sikh television industry, known to friends as entrepreneurial and trusting — was lured to a student address in Brighton by Mundill Mahil. Harvinder Shoker and Darren Peters carried out the attack. Singh's body was later found burning in his car on Blackheath in south-east London, which gives the programme its title. The case produced convictions and a long set of questions about how Singh came to be there and what had preceded the events of that night.

Channel 4's two-part factual drama takes that case as its subject. The format — part reconstruction, part documentary testimony — has become the standard approach for this kind of true-crime programming on British television. What separates good work in the genre from careless work is how much it treats the victim as a person rather than a trigger for the events that follow. Gagandip Singh was 21. The dramatic facts of the case are substantial enough without reducing him to a plot function.

Part 2 concludes on Monday 25 May. Both parts are on Channel 4 at 9pm.

Obituary -- ITV1, 10.45pm

Obituary, UK premiere, ITV1 at 10.45pm on Sunday 24 May 2026. An RTÉ and Hulu original drama, Series 1 originally broadcast on RTÉ in September 2023 (a second series followed in late 2025). Siobhán Cullen as Elvira Clancy, obituary writer in the fictional Irish coastal town of Kilraven. Full series on ITVX.

The premise of Obituary is its own best elevator pitch. Elvira Clancy writes obituaries in a small Irish coastal town where, inconveniently, people do not die often enough to keep her in work. Her solution is the one any satirist would recognise as both logical and monstrous: she starts murdering them. The Dexter comparison holds structurally — a protagonist whose dark interior life drives the comedy — but the Irish register is its own thing. Siobhán Cullen plays Elvira as something between a grown-up Wednesday Addams and a journalist with extremely poor boundaries, which is a specific tonal achievement.

Series 1 premiered on RTÉ in September 2023, with a second series following in late 2025; Hulu carried the show internationally. ITV1's Sunday night launch is the UK's first broadcast outing for it. ITVX has the full series, which means anyone who watches tonight and decides they need the next episode immediately does not have to wait until next Sunday.

On ITV1 at 10.45pm. Full series on ITVX.

Sport today

French Open Day 1 -- TNT Sports 1 and 4, from 9.30am

The 2026 French Open begins on Sunday 24 May at Roland Garros. The main draw gets underway today after the qualifying rounds concluded during the previous week. Full tournament coverage runs through to the final on 7 June. TNT Sports 1 and TNT Sports 4 carry the live feed from 9.30am BST -- the first matches on Court Philippe-Chatrier and Court Suzanne-Lenglen are typically the earliest scheduled slots, with the order of play released 24 hours in advance on the tournament website.

Roland Garros in late May means slow clay and equalising conditions, which is when the draw is at its most likely to break against seeded players who have not found their clay-court form in the weeks preceding. The French Open has historically been the major that produces the most first-week surprises of any Grand Slam. The surface does what good clay is supposed to do: it gives time and advantage to anyone who knows what to do with both.

Live on TNT Sports 1 and TNT Sports 4 from 9.30am.

Giro d'Italia Stage 15 -- TNT Sports 3, from noon

Stage 15 of the 109th Giro d'Italia runs from Voghera to Milano over 136 kilometres. It is a flat stage -- the kind the sprinters have been calculating their remaining energy for since the mountain phases began. The finishing circuit of 16.3 kilometres is covered four times and traces sections of the historic Milano--Sanremo course, which means the riders are racing into central Milan on roads that have a separate significance on the spring calendar.

The official Giro route gives 157km; some early previews quoted 136km, but the longer figure is what the riders cover.

Sprint stages in the final week of the Giro carry a different quality from the sprint stages of the first ten days. The peloton arriving into Milan has already been through two mountain blocks, a time trial, and whatever accumulated fatigue the race has deposited on the GC riders and the sprinters' lead-out trains alike. The sprints at the end of a grand tour tend to be slower, tighter, and more contested in the final 200 metres than the early bunch gallops. The finishing circuit that echoes Milan--Sanremo adds a layer of symbolic weight for anyone who has been watching the Giro for long enough to care about that kind of thing.

Live on TNT Sports 3 from noon BST.

Premier League Final Day -- Sky Sports, coverage 3pm, k/o 4pm

Covered in full above. Arsenal at Crystal Palace for the title; West Ham vs Leeds and Spurs vs Everton for the final relegation place. All 10 matches from 4pm on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League.

Formula One: Canadian Grand Prix -- Sky Sports F1, coverage 7.30pm, race 9pm

The 2026 Formula One Canadian Grand Prix, Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal. Race start 9pm BST / 4pm ET. Sky Sports F1 from 7.30pm; Sky Sports Main Event from 8pm.

This is a sprint-format weekend. The sprint race ran on Saturday 23 May at 5pm BST; the main race follows tonight. Kimi Antonelli leads the 2026 drivers' championship on 100 points after three consecutive wins. George Russell is second on 80 points, and they are teammates at Mercedes. That sets up the internal dynamic Mercedes has dealt with before — a dominant constructor whose lead-driver situation is decided by lap times rather than team orders, until the moment it stops being.

Antonelli is 20 and leading the championship. That detail does not need amplification. Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve is a semi-street circuit with walls close enough that a mistake costs the race immediately. Limited runoff. It suits drivers who are precise at low-radius chicanes and aggressive on the braking zones into the hairpin, and it has a history of safety cars and late-race drama that makes confident predictions awkward.

The sprint format means the grid already has some known shape from Saturday's result. The main race establishes full constructor and driver points on the standard scale. With Antonelli on a three-race winning streak, the question tonight is whether anyone in the field has found something in their car to break the pattern.

Sky Sports F1 from 7.30pm; Sky Sports Main Event from 8pm; race start 9pm BST.

Also worth watching today

The 1% Club: Kids Special -- ITV1, 8pm

Lee Mack hosts a children's edition of The 1% Club with 100 contestants aged 9 to 15. The prize is a family trip to Walt Disney World Florida, which, as incentive structures go, is considerably more motivating for a nine-year-old than a cash prize their parents will immediately start managing on their behalf. The 1% Club format rewards logical thinking over general knowledge, which means a ten-year-old with no cultural frame of reference but a good spatial-reasoning brain can genuinely outperform an adult. That is supposed to happen, and when it does the television works. On ITV1 at 8pm.

Later... with Jools Holland -- BBC Two, 10pm

Later... with Jools Holland records from Alexandra Palace Theatre this week, with Joe Bonamassa as the headliner. Bonamassa is a blues guitarist who recorded with BB King, which is the kind of conversation-within-the-show that Jools tends to find his way toward — two musicians who know where the music came from, talking about it in front of an audience that may or may not know the full depth of the reference. It is one of the reasons Later has worked for this long. The host is a participant rather than a compere.

Also on the bill: James Blake, whose studio craft does not always survive the live format but on a good night produces something unrepeatable; Ashley McBryde, the Arkansas country singer-songwriter who has become one of the more distinctive voices in contemporary country; Sekou; Jocelyn Brown, who sang Somebody Else's Guy in 1984 and whose presence on any live music programme is an immediate upgrade; and Mandy Indiana, whose track "Cursive" is on the set list.

On BBC Two at 10pm.

Britain's Best Service Station -- Channel 5, 7pm

JB Gill, best known as a member of JLS — the four-piece who finished runners-up on The X Factor in 2008 and still one of the few British pop groups from that era most people can name three members of from memory — presents a programme about motorway services. The top five UK service stations get revealed tonight. South Mimms is, according to Gill, the JLS favourite, which either says something about the quality of South Mimms or something about the routes a four-piece pop group covers between London and the rest of the country. A 3-minute-40 vanilla-latte-and-comfort-break achievement is flagged in the programme. That is a specific timing. Either very detailed research or a production team that brought a stopwatch. On Channel 5 at 7pm.

The Assembly -- ITV1, 10pm

Rylan Clark sits down for an interview in which the questions come from a panel of neurodivergent and learning-disabled participants — people who ask what they actually want to know rather than what an editorial brief has suggested is the right angle. Rylan's verdict afterwards: "honestly my favourite interview I've ever done." The quote carries weight precisely because he has done enough interviews over the past decade to know the difference between a good one and a routine one.

The format of The Assembly is valuable for a reason easy to state and harder to articulate in practice. When the interviewers are not operating within the social conventions of professional journalism, the subject sometimes finds themselves answering differently. The questions are direct, personal, occasionally unexpected, and the subject has no PR script for responding to them. Sometimes this produces the most human television in the schedule. On ITV1 at 10pm.

Expedition with Steve Backshall -- BBC Two, 7.15pm

Steve Backshall descends into the volcanic underworld beneath Saudi Arabia — lava tube cave systems that the geological record says should not be as extensive as they are. It is the kind of expedition sequence that works on BBC Two at 7.15pm when it does exactly what it says: a naturalist and adventurer in a genuinely unusual environment, explaining what he is looking at and what it means, without too much production interference. At 7.15pm.

Murdoch Mysteries -- U&Alibi, 7pm

Season 19 of Murdoch Mysteries has reached an alien-abduction-of-the-week instalment -- which is either a sign that the show has expanded its creative scope or evidence that, after 19 seasons, the writers have been through most other options. The answer is probably both. On U&Alibi at 7pm.

Hudson and Rex -- U&Alibi, 8pm

A murder on a yacht, and a 64-digit hex code cryptocurrency wallet that the investigation turns on. The hex code is the kind of plot mechanism that Hudson and Rex uses to update the procedural premise -- the technology changes, the investigative logic underneath it does not. On U&Alibi at 8pm.

Frequently asked questions

What's on TV tonight Sunday 24 May 2026?

The headline of Sunday 24 May is Dear England on BBC One at 9pm -- Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate, written by James Graham from his own Olivier-winning stage play; Episodes 1 and 2 are on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from tonight, with Episodes 3 and 4 following on 31 May. Before that, the Premier League Final Day brings all 10 matches simultaneously at 4pm on Sky Sports -- Arsenal (82pts) can clinch the title at Crystal Palace. Death Valley S2 is on BBC One at 8.15pm (Timothy Spall, Roisin Conaty guest). BBC Four marks the 100th anniversary of Stanley Baxter's birth with Being Stanley Baxter at 9pm. Channel 4 has Vengeance: Murder on the Heath at 9pm (part one of two, Gagandip Singh murder 2011). ITV1 has The 1% Club Kids Special at 8pm (Lee Mack), The Assembly at 10pm (Rylan Clark), and the UK premiere of Obituary at 10.45pm (Siobhán Cullen, RTÉ/Hulu). The Canadian Grand Prix races on Sky Sports F1 from 9pm. The French Open begins on TNT Sports from 9.30am. Browse tonight's highlights or what's on right now.

What is Dear England on BBC One tonight?

Dear England is a new BBC One drama written by James Graham, adapted from his own Olivier Award-winning National Theatre stage play. Joseph Fiennes plays Gareth Southgate; Jodie Whittaker plays sports psychologist Pippa Grange; Jason Watkins plays FA chairman Greg Dyke; Daniel Ryan plays assistant manager Steve Holland. The England squad is played by Will Antenbring (Harry Kane), Adam Hugill (Harry Maguire), Josh Barrow (Jordan Pickford), Lewis Shepherd (Dele Alli), and Sam Spruell (Mike Webster). Directed by Rupert Goold (Ep 1) and Paul Whittington (Eps 2--4). Produced by Left Bank Pictures. Episode 1 begins with Southgate's transition from caretaker to permanent England manager after the Euro 2016 Iceland defeat. Episodes 1 and 2 air on BBC One at 9pm and land on BBC iPlayer from tonight; Episodes 3 and 4 broadcast on BBC One on Sunday 31 May.

Who plays Gareth Southgate in Dear England?

Joseph Fiennes plays Gareth Southgate in Dear England on BBC One. The drama is written by James Graham, adapted from his own Olivier-winning stage play. The full cast includes Jodie Whittaker as sports psychologist Pippa Grange, Jason Watkins as FA chairman Greg Dyke, Daniel Ryan as assistant manager Steve Holland, Will Antenbring as Harry Kane, Adam Hugill as Harry Maguire, Josh Barrow as Jordan Pickford, Lewis Shepherd as Dele Alli, and Sam Spruell as psychologist Mike Webster. Dear England launches on BBC One at 9pm on Sunday 24 May 2026, with Episodes 1 and 2 on BBC iPlayer from the same night and Episodes 3 and 4 following on 31 May.

What is happening on Premier League Final Day?

All 10 Premier League Matchday 38 fixtures kick off simultaneously at 4pm BST on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League. Arsenal (82pts) are at Crystal Palace and can clinch the title with a win; Manchester City (78pts) are too far behind to catch them regardless of results. The top four is already confirmed: Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa. At the bottom, Wolves and Burnley are already relegated. The final relegation place is between Tottenham (17th, 38pts, home v Everton -- safe with a point) and West Ham (18th, 36pts, home v Leeds -- must win and hope Spurs lose).

What time is the Canadian Grand Prix today?

The 2026 Formula One Canadian Grand Prix races on Sunday 24 May at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal. Race start is 9pm BST (4pm local ET). Sky Sports F1 coverage begins at 7.30pm; Sky Sports Main Event carries it from 8pm. This is a sprint-format weekend (the sprint was Saturday 23 May at 5pm BST). Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) leads the drivers' championship on 100 points, ahead of teammate George Russell on 80 points. Antonelli has won three consecutive races.

Why is Being Stanley Baxter on tonight?

Being Stanley Baxter airs on BBC Four at 9pm on Sunday 24 May 2026 because today is the 100th anniversary of Stanley Baxter's birth (born 24 May 1926, Glasgow). Baxter -- the actor, comedian and impressionist regarded as one of the great comic performers in British television history -- died on 11 December 2025 aged 99, four months short of his centenary. The documentary profiles his television career and his life in and around the entertainment industry from the 1950s onwards.

What is Vengeance: Murder on the Heath?

Vengeance: Murder on the Heath is a two-part factual drama on Channel 4. Part 1 airs at 9pm on Sunday 24 May 2026. The programme covers the February 2011 murder of 21-year-old Sikh TV entrepreneur Gagandip Singh, lured to Mundill Mahil's flat in Brighton. Harvinder Shoker and Darren Peters carried out the attack. The concluding part airs Monday 25 May 2026.

What is Obituary on ITV1?

Obituary is the UK premiere of an RTÉ and Hulu co-production. Series 1 first aired on RTÉ in September 2023, with a second series in late 2025. Siobhán Cullen stars as Elvira Clancy, an obituary writer in the fictional Irish coastal town of Kilraven who begins murdering people to sustain her income -- a darkly comic premise that has drawn comparisons to Dexter. ITV1 airs Episode 1 at 10.45pm on Sunday 24 May 2026. The full series is available on ITVX.

What time is the French Open on TV today?

The 2026 French Open (Roland Garros) begins on Day 1, Sunday 24 May. Main draw play gets underway from 9.30am BST, live on TNT Sports 1 and TNT Sports 4. The full tournament runs until 7 June 2026.

What time is the Giro d'Italia today?

Stage 15 of the 109th Giro d'Italia -- Voghera to Milano, 157km -- is live on TNT Sports 3 from noon BST on Sunday 24 May 2026. It is a flat bunch-sprint stage; the finishing circuit of 16.3km is covered four times and runs along sections of the historic Milano--Sanremo course.

Tonight's final word

Sunday 24 May has a shape that Saturday's more crowded schedule rarely produces: a clean sequence of events, each in its own time slot, each earning its space. The Premier League Final Day at 4pm is the sporting conclusion of a 38-matchday season compressed into 90 simultaneous minutes. Arsenal winning the title at Crystal Palace is the most likely outcome and also the neatest narrative -- a club that last won the league in 2003/04, doing it again in 2026. But the relegation battle in south and east London gives the afternoon a second story to track alongside the first.

By 9pm, the pitch gives way to a dressing room. Dear England is the programme that BBC One has built the evening around, and it is a more ambitious commission than its subject might suggest. Football drama can very easily become either hagiography or sport-documentary-with-actors. Graham's play became an Olivier winner because it was neither of those things; it was a piece of writing about psychology, masculinity, and what institutions do to the people inside them. The television version has the same material to work with and a cast that knows what to do with it.

Being Stanley Baxter at 9pm on BBC Four is, on the face of it, the minor scheduling event of the evening. But the date gives it weight. He lived for 99 years and six months and died four months short of seeing tonight. The centenary is happening regardless. BBC Four marking it with a documentary is the right call, and the documentary is worth watching for anyone who knows the work, and probably more worth watching for anyone who does not.

Later... with Jools Holland at 10pm on BBC Two, and Obituary at 10.45pm on ITV1, take the evening into its later hours. Bonamassa and Jocelyn Brown on the same stage, and Siobhán Cullen's Elvira making her UK television entrance in the same programme window. Both have reasons to keep you up past midnight.

Check what's on right now, browse tonight's highlights, or find any channel through the full channels list. Monday 25 May: Nobody's Fool Episode 3 on ITV1, Vengeance: Murder on the Heath Part 2 on Channel 4, and the Giro continues into the final week.