What to watch this weekend: an evening on BBC One, the Netflix top 10, a festival from 7 October and theatre for £5

Sunday evening is the honest moment for this conversation: you no longer want to go anywhere, but you do want to watch something. We have gathered what is actually on right now — free-to-air, Netflix, theatre and cinema — and marked what we like ourselves. Every date and price here is checked against the broadcasters, theatres and the festival themselves, not against listings aggregators.

What is on tonight, 4 October, without leaving the house?

BBC One fills the whole evening without a single subscription. At 18:40 the first episode of the new six-part The Reluctant Vampire starts — the rare case where you can catch a premiere from the beginning instead of catching up later. At 19:10 it is the week two results show of the 24th series of Strictly Come Dancing, at 20:00 Antiques Roadshow from Caerphilly Castle in south Wales, at 21:00 episode five of six of the drama The Split Up. At 22:30 comes the film Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and at 14:00 it was Shrek 2 — your slot if there are children in the house. All of it is free, but remember the TV licence: you need one for live television and for iPlayer.

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What is Britain actually watching?

In Netflix’s official UK top 10 for the week of 21–27 September, the number one film is UNABOMBER, which debuted straight at the top. Behind it: Wasteman, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Best of the Best (second week), the documentary Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (third week), The Judge, The Whisper Man (a rare fifth week in the chart), Birds of Prey, Ted and Twilight. In series, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story holds number one for a second week, followed by The Gentlemen season 2, the new Wonka’s The Golden Ticket, The Gentlemen season 1 (fourteenth week in the chart), Not a Stranger, The Real Unforgotten, the teen drama Crew Girl and Ms. Rachel, which has now spent forty-one weeks in the top 10.

Which series should you catch up on to follow the office conversation?

The Celebrity Traitors — series two is running right now and it is the British autumn’s main talking point. There are ten episodes; in the week after this weekend episode three airs on Thursday 8 October at 20:00 on BBC One and episode four on Friday 9 October at the same time, each followed at 21:05 by the companion show Uncloaked with Ed Gamble. Missed episodes sit on iPlayer, so one evening is enough to catch up. For a newcomer it is the perfect way into British television folklore: simple rules, conversational English, and everyone will be discussing it.

The film event of the month starts on Wednesday

The 70th BFI London Film Festival runs from 7 to 18 October, and the anniversary edition is substantial: 251 titles from 88 countries — features, shorts, series and immersive works — including 33 world premieres. Simon Stone’s Elsinore opens the festival and Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut closes it. Screenings run at BFI Southbank and the Royal Festival Hall, in central London cinemas, and at ten partner venues across the UK’s regions and nations. Tickets went on general sale on 17 September, so the headline premieres may already be gone — but shorts and non-English-language films usually have seats until the last day. Our advice: skip the star premiere and take a shorts programme instead; it is the cheapest way to see, in ninety minutes, five directors people will be writing about in a year.

What if you are not in London?

Then your screen is the local cinema, and that is not a compromise. First, the festival has ten partner venues around the country showing a curated part of the programme plus a Screen Talk. Second, National Theatre Live films its productions and shows them in cinemas nationwide. On now: The Misanthrope, Molière reworked with Sandra Oh in the title role, in cinemas since 22 September. From 5 November it is joined by Golden Boy with Josh O’Connor. A cinema ticket costs incomparably less than a trip to London with a hotel, and the NT Live camera gets closer to the actors’ faces than the stalls ever do.

Theatre: what must you catch this week?

One thing, and it closes on 10 October. At the National’s Lyttelton Theatre, Benedict Andrews directs Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss in Electra/Persona; after 10 October it is gone. In the Olivier, until 24 October, there is The Story, Tracey Scott Wilson’s newsroom thriller with Letitia Wright, directed by Clint Dyer. And from 7 October the Dorfman opens Some Woman, a new play by Helen Edmundson with Anne-Marie Duff. If you can pick only one and budget is not the issue, we would go to Electra/Persona, simply because casts like that assemble on a London stage once every few years.

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And if the budget is ten pounds?

Then the Globe, and that is neither a joke nor a consolation prize. Shakespeare’s Globe currently has two productions: As You Like It from 4 to 25 October and Much Ado About Nothing from 5 to 24 October. Gallery seats run from £28 to £88 (including a £3 per-order transaction fee), and standing tickets in the yard cost £10 and £5. For a fiver you stand three metres from the stage under the open sky, exactly where Londoners stood four hundred years ago. One honest drawback: October in London means rain, the yard has no roof, and umbrellas are not allowed — bring a waterproof. From 6 November the neighbouring Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opens Julius Caesar, in the only candlelit theatre in London.

Documentaries and short films: where do you find them?

In two places, both already mentioned. Documentary is doing well in the mainstream right now: Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers is in its third week in the Netflix top 10, and UNABOMBER — a drama built entirely on documentary material — is the country’s number one film. Short films barely reach ordinary cinemas, which is exactly why a festival programme is the one easy way to see them: shorts are among those 251 LFF titles alongside the features and series.

Are vertical series a serious thing?

Serious as a habit, but there is no verifiable British data on them yet. Vertical micro-dramas — shot for a phone screen and released in minute-long chunks — have grown noticeably over the past two years, but no UK regulator or broadcaster publishes separate figures on them, so we will not pretend to know numbers. What we can say honestly: if you like the “story in ninety seconds” format, a festival-grade short film gives you far more for the same time and money — and in October it is easy to find one.

What we recommend

Three things, one per format. At home: catch the premiere of The Reluctant Vampire tonight at 18:40 on BBC One, because starting a series at episode one beats any recommendation algorithm. In the cinema: not the star premiere but a shorts programme at the BFI London Film Festival between 7 and 18 October. In the theatre: Electra/Persona before 10 October if you can find a ticket, and As You Like It at the Globe for a £5 standing place if you cannot. And if you do want to leave the house in daylight this weekend, we have a guide to the autumn exhibitions, weekend routes across Britain and a Russian-language events calendar for October.