Beach parties, custom vans and California sunshine are coming to British late-night television this July, by way of a clutch of American drive-in movies that have rarely, if ever, aired in the UK.
They’re the centrepiece of July’s After Hours – the late-night cult film strand on Rewind TV, the Freeview (and now Freesat) channel that digs classic British television out of the archives. It’s a seasonal change of pace for a slot that launched last autumn with cheeky British cinema of the 1960s and 70s, and this time the mood is pure summer.
The rest of the month leans on the usual classic British comedy and adventure. There’s ITC espionage with Man in a Suitcase, the hospital sitcom Doctor in Charge – which picks up the Doctor franchise more or less exactly where last month’s Doctor at Large left off – and Bottle Boys, a milkman sitcom that counts as one of the more notorious entries Rewind TV has dug up.
And if you have struggled to find the channel before, there’s a useful change worth knowing about. From June 25, Rewind TV is also on Freesat, on Channel 164 – the last major free-to-air platform it was missing.
“July combines everything viewers have come to expect from Rewind TV, classic comedy, cult television and fascinating rediscoveries,” says Rewind TV co-founder Jonathan Moore.
“Whether it’s the adventures of McGill in Man in a Suitcase, the laughs of Doctor in Charge and Bottle Boys, or our summer-themed After Hours films, there’s plenty for viewers looking for the perfect summer escape.”
Where to Find Rewind TV
Since launching on Sky in May 2024 and expanding to Freeview that September, Rewind TV has established itself as a reliable home for classic British programming that might otherwise remain locked away in archives.
From June 25, it reaches every major over-the-air free TV platform in the UK. You can find it on:
- Freeview Channel 81
- Sky Channel 182 (satellite only)
- Freely Channel 141 (aerial-connected version only)
- Freesat Channel 164 (from June 25)
The one gap that remains is streaming. Rewind TV still has no standalone app and no true streamed channel – the Freely listing on 141 is the Freeview broadcast surfacing through the guide on aerial-connected sets, rather than a channel you can pull in over broadband.
For now, it remains a resolutely old-school, broadcast-only operation.
So without further ado, here are the highlights for July 2026.
Man in a Suitcase
Man in a Suitcase arrives July 10 at 12:00pm and 8:00pm, and it’s a strong piece of 1960s adventure television with a direct line back to a series we featured here in May.
Richard Bradford stars as McGill, an American ex-CIA agent who, after being framed and forced out of the service, scrapes a living as a freelance troubleshooter for hire across Europe. His fee is 500 dollars a day plus expenses, and his world is one of betrayal, double-crosses and clients who rarely tell him the whole truth.
The series was made by Lew Grade‘s ITC Entertainment and ran on ITV across a single 30-episode run from 1967 to 1968.
It exists, in a sense, because of Danger Man: when Patrick McGoohan walked away to make The Prisoner, ITC needed a replacement, and much of the Danger Man production team moved straight over to this. It was even going to be called McGill before the title changed.
What sets it apart from the rest of the ITC stable is Bradford himself. A method actor spotted after appearing opposite Marlon Brando in The Chase, he insisted that violence should have consequences – McGill gets hurt, stays hurt, and ends more than one episode in hospital rather than dusting himself off for the next adventure.
That commitment gives the show a grounded, hardboiled quality that has kept it feeling less dated than many of its contemporaries.
Doctor in Charge
Doctor in Charge starts July 14 at 10:00am and 7:30pm, and for anyone who caught Doctor at Large on the channel last month, this is the next chapter.
It’s the third series in the long-running Doctor franchise that began with Doctor in the House, adapted from Richard Gordon‘s novels.
This one follows the former students as fully fledged staff doctors back at their old teaching hospital, St Swithin’s, still tormented by the fearsome Professor Loftus, played by Ernest Clark.
The big change from Doctor at Large is at the centre. Barry Evans, who led the earlier series, did not return, so Robin Nedwell stepped up as Dr Duncan Waring to become the lead – a role he kept for the rest of the franchise.
Geoffrey Davies and George Layton both carry over, which gives the series a familiar feel for anyone following along from June.
As with Doctor at Large, the writing credits are part of the appeal. Episodes were scripted by the likes of Graham Chapman, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, alongside Layton himself – the same comedy pedigree that ran through its predecessor.
Made by London Weekend Television and broadcast on ITV in 1972 and 1973, it was the longest of all the Doctor series at 43 episodes, and a regular fixture in ITV’s top ten.
Bottle Boys
Bottle Boys starts July 20 at 10:30am and 7:00pm, and it’s the kind of title that says a lot about Rewind TV’s willingness to pull anything out of the archive, popular or otherwise.
Robin Askwith stars as Dave Deacon, a football-mad milkman working out of Dawson’s Dairies in South London, alongside a depot full of workmates played by Oscar James, David Auker, Leo Dolan and Richard Davies.
The humour runs to the broad, seaside-postcard end of things – amorous milkmen, bored housewives and the kind of innuendo that Askwith had already made his name on in the Confessions films.
It was created by Vince Powell, the writer behind Love Thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language, and the lead was originally written for Jim Davidson before Askwith took it on.
The channel describes it as one of the most distinctive British sitcoms of the 1980s, and distinctive is fair – though it’s worth being honest that it arrived in 1984 already swimming against the tide, as alternative comedy was sweeping away exactly this style of broad, stereotype-driven ITV humour.
Critics were not kind to it then, and it has a fairly notorious reputation now.
That said, it pulled in large audiences in its day – around ten million at its peak – and ran for two series on ITV between 1984 and 1985. As a period piece, it captures a particular kind of mainstream television comedy that was, even at the time, on its way out.
Whether that makes it nostalgic or simply dated will depend entirely on the viewer.
After Hours: Summer Nights
Rewind TV’s After Hours strand – the late-night slot for cult films and adults-only curiosities – heads somewhere new for July.
Where the launch run last autumn dug into British cinema, this month’s selection is almost entirely American, and built around a very specific corner of film history: the sunlit, low-budget teen comedy.
Several of these came from Crown International Pictures, a studio that specialised in California drive-in fare through the 1970s and early 80s – beaches, custom vans, cruising and summer romance, often released as double bills and aimed squarely at teenagers (or rather, at actors in their twenties playing teenagers).
It’s a tradition that runs straight through most of this lineup, before two early-90s thrillers shift the tone entirely at the end.
No broadcast dates or times have been confirmed yet, so expect very late-night slots with the appropriate warnings attached.
Superchick (1973)
Joyce Jillson stars as a flight attendant who leads a double life – demure brunette on the job, blonde adventurer the moment she’s off the clock, with a different boyfriend in every city and a black belt to deal with anyone who gets in her way.
An early-70s exploitation comedy that’s very much of its moment. As a footnote, Jillson went on to become a celebrity astrologer who claimed to have advised Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign.
The Pom Pom Girls (1976)
A high-school comedy of rivalries, romance and coming-of-age hijinks, starring Robert Carradine, Jennifer Ashley and Michael Mullins.
It became one of the defining American teen movies of its era and a template for a lot of what followed.
Malibu Beach (1978)
The quintessential entry in the California beach-movie cycle: school’s out, everyone heads to the sand, a new lifeguard falls for the wrong sort of trouble, and not much else gets in the way of the sunshine. Light, breezy and entirely about the vibe.
Van Nuys Boulevard (1979)
A snapshot of Southern California cruising culture, following a group of young friends whose lives revolve around fast cars, the strip, and weekend adventures.
If you’ve ever wondered what American Graffiti looked like filtered through a low-budget drive-in lens, this is close.
The Beach Girls (1982)
Three friends open up a relative’s beach house for the ultimate summer getaway, and a great deal of partying follows.
Comedy, romance and seaside escapades in the established beach-movie mould.
My Tutor (1983)
One of the more successful teen comedies of its decade, starring Matt Lattanzi and Caren Kaye, as a struggling student gets some rather unconventional help over the summer ahead of an important exam.
Worth a look for an early appearance from a young Crispin Glover, later of Back to the Future, in the supporting cast.
Weekend Pass (1984)
A group of servicemen make the most of a weekend’s leave, with the predictable run of comic misadventures that follows. Stars D.W. Brown, Patrick Houser, Peter Ellenstein and Chip McAllister.
Night Eyes (1990)
Here’s where the strand changes gear. Night Eyes is an early-90s erotic thriller starring Andrew Stevens as a security expert who is hired to watch over a rock star’s wife – played by Tanya Roberts, the Bond girl from A View to a Kill – and finds himself drawn into a web of obsession and murder.
A very different proposition from the beach movies, and aimed at a much later-night audience.
Night Eyes II (1991)
Andrew Stevens returns for the follow-up, which keeps the noir-inflected, late-night suspense of the original going. Another one for the small hours.
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