TV Times – 29 August 2026

Summary

Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie board an Arctic submarine for the third run of Vigil in the 29 August-4 September 2026 issue of TV Times, a 114-page TV listings weekly that leads with four pages of cover-story photography. The new series sends Jones's Commander Amy Silva to a nuclear-powered icebreaker.

Sixteen pages of Stars & Stories features follow the cover: Trigger Point season 4 with Vicky McClure, Gary Barlow's Food and Wine Tour in New Zealand, Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen, Celebrity MasterChef's Sue Cleaver, The Great British Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant, Wham! 10 Days in China, Hamza's African Birds of Prey, and a Tea with Judi Dench spread. Soaps run 6 pages across Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Hollyoaks, Home and Away, and The Archers. The 70-page daily TV guide covers seven days of listings with radio schedules.

The back-of-book regulars close with puzzles, What You're Watching reader poll, next-week preview, and a retro cover from 1987. The films section rates and reviews four pages of movies.

Content Guide

▸ Cover Story / Drama

p.6 · Vigil — Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie on a Dangerous Mission to the Arctic
The third run sends Silva and Longacre to a nuclear icebreaker where a crew member has vanished. Jones describes filming inside a real submarine simulator at a Royal Navy facility; Leslie says the cold was the hardest physical element. Tune in for episode 2's 10-minute single-shot chase across the ice.

p.8 · Trigger Point — Vicky McClure Returns as Bomb Disposal Expert Lana
Season 4 opens with a device planted inside a packed London stadium. McClure performed her own bomb-suit walking sequences for three days of filming at the real Tottenham Hotspur stadium. Watch the opening sequence with the sound up — the ambient hum cues the trigger.

p.9 · The Game — New Spy Drama
A cold-war thriller set in 1972 follows a British intelligence officer who defected to Moscow and now wants to return. The six-part series filmed in Vilnius doubling for East Berlin.

▸ Entertainment & Lifestyle

p.11 · Gary Barlow's Food and Wine Tour: New Zealand
Barlow travels from Marlborough to Central Otago, pairing sauvignon blanc with local green-lipped mussels and pinot noir with lamb. He admits in the piece that he learned to cook only after turning 50. Book a table at the Marlborough seafood shed Barlow visits.

p.12 · Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen
Leith cooks simple British dishes in her own farmhouse kitchen. The episode featured in this issue includes a stilton and walnut tart that uses 4 ingredients. Prep the pastry the night before to save time.

p.13 · Celebrity MasterChef — Sue Cleaver
The Coronation Street actress talks about cooking under pressure with judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace. She reveals her signature dish is a Thai green curry she learned from her daughter. Freeze your curry paste in ice-cube trays for portion control.

p.14 · Patrick Grant — The Great British Sewing Bee Judge
Grant discusses his clothing brand Community Clothing and why he believes sewing is a life skill, not a hobby. He names the one stitch every beginner should master. Learn the backstitch first — Grant says it replaces 80 percent of machine stitching.

▸ Documentaries & History

p.21 · Tea with Judi Dench
Dame Judi hosts a conversation series where she drinks tea with guests including David Tennant and Maggie Smith. The article prints Dench's own tea recipe: one Yorkshire Gold bag, 3-minute steep, a splash of milk, no sugar. Brew your tea exactly 3 minutes — Dench says 4 ruins it.

p.22 · Mayday — Air Disaster Documentary Series
A returning episode reconstructs the 2003 crash of a Boeing 737 in Sudan using cockpit-voice-recorder transcripts. The episode includes animated re-creations of the hydraulic failure sequence.

Editor's Take

The Vigil cover sells the issue, but the meat is in the middle pages — Gary Barlow's New Zealand travel piece and Prue Leith's Cotswold kitchen feel like proper features rather than padded program notes. The soap section is efficient: 6 pages, 6 soaps, no filler. The daily TV guide takes up 70 pages, which is the real product, but editorial balance tilts heavily toward BBC and ITV premieres; channel-5 and satellite shows get short-changed. The back-page retro cover from 1987 is a throwaway.

Strengths
• Vigil season premiere with behind-the-scenes filming intelligence
• Gary Barlow travel feature with restaurant-level specificity
• Prue Leith's 4-ingredient stilton tart recipe included

Weaknesses
• Daily TV guide dominates 60 percent of the page count
• Channel 5 and satellite programming under-represented in highlights

Verdict: Recommended — Essential for Vigil fans; useful for anyone planning a week of British television.