Yesterday TV Guide — Monday, 31 August 2026

David Attenborough highlights the curiosities that have led to accusations of forgery, but have ultimately helped assist the rethinking of evolution. When early explorers brought the first specimen of a duck-billed platypus to England in 1799, it was considered so bizarre it was deemed a hoax. Similarly, the midwife toad became the centre of a scientific storm in the 1920s that led to accusations of fakery

A small isolated country littered with strange concrete mushrooms and a secret Japanese facility that was once at the forefront of weapons technology

A creepy collection of buildings and monuments hidden in a Parisian park and an eerie graveyard of discarded ships strewn along the banks of a mighty river

Tim Dunn explores disused Tube station Down Street in Mayfair, which played a crucial tactical role during the Second World War. He also tours Rotterdam's new Centraal station with the man who designed it

Derek Mathewson collects a Jaguar Mark 2 and explains why they made such poor getaway cars for 1960s bank robbers. A customer considers a Morris Marina as a Christmas present

The team is under pressure with a record number of cars to auction, but Derek finds room for one more - a replica AC Cobra. A couple are reunited with their Volvo breakdown truck

Documentary examining how Winston Churchill brought together a group of scientists and engineers to come up with ingenious secret weapons during the Second World War

Churchill's plan to attack Germany through Italy. Although considered the simplest military solution, the Allies were to face formidable opposition, while the Americans met the Wehrmacht for the first time. Narrated by Laurence Olivier

Fiona Bruce and the team visit Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, where members of the public bring along their treasured antiques and collectibles. Items include a miniature kitchen range crafted in metal, a fragment of a 12th-century Hindu sculpture found buried in a garden and a 1970s barber's chair. Other highlights include a chunky merchant's ring that could date back to the 15th century and items once belonging to Capt Arthur Rostron, whose ship, the Carpathia, came to the aid of the Titanic

Fiona Bruce and the team return to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, where finds include a sketch by LS Lowry, a 17th-century longcase clock, a model of a local ship that was once the fastest to cross the Atlantic, and a miniature piano that opens up to reveal a couple of secrets inside. The Dean of the Cathedral asks for help in identifying a mysterious chest found in 2009, having been bricked up behind a wall, and expert Andy McDonnell tells a tale of skulduggery when he encounters work by glass-maker Elizabeth Graydon-Stannus

Derek collects a beautifully restored and carefully modified 1936 Wolseley 14/56. Meanwhile, a Batman-inspired Chrysler Crossfire is dropped off at the Thornton le Dale garage

Paul's doing the pick-ups in Lancashire where a rare 1960 Vauxhall Cresta PA Friary estate in dusky pink awaits

Documentary examining how Winston Churchill brought together a group of scientists and engineers to come up with ingenious secret weapons during the Second World War

Churchill's plan to attack Germany through Italy. Although considered the simplest military solution, the Allies were to face formidable opposition, while the Americans met the Wehrmacht for the first time. Narrated by Laurence Olivier