Britain’s long-running live music show is back, and its first episode is stacked with debuts. The 69th series of Later… With Jools Holland starts on BBC Two on Sunday, Oct. 11, filmed live at Alexandra Palace Theatre in London, and four of episode one’s five performers are making their first appearance on the show.
The headliner is Paul Heaton, playing in support of Jenius, his first solo UK No. 1 album, per NME’s rundown of the line-up. The first-timers are Skye Newman, the Mary In The Junkyard band, the gospel-inspired Northampton rapper DC3 and Wiltshire singer-songwriter Dermot Henry. Johnny Marr, meanwhile, joins Holland for a sit-down about his new solo album, The Age Of Everything, due out Oct. 2.
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Newman is the booking to watch. The south-east London singer won BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2026 in January, the poll’s 24th winner, in a year when Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi each invited her on tour, BBC News reported. “I can’t believe that I’ve got to this point,” she told the BBC then. “It’s incredible, surreal, just mental.” Her debut single “Hairdresser” went straight into the UK top 20, and its follow-up “Family Matters” reached No. 5.
Marr told NME how he approached the album:
I’m usually quite deliberate. I went into this record with a real sense of purpose; that’s why we played eight out of the 10 songs live on the road.
Johnny Marr, NME
The rest of the run is built to move around. NME lists Jamie T (whose Ghosts (100 Days Of Morning) is due in October), Bloc Party, Violet Grohl, Royal Blood, Tony Iommi, Courtney Barnett, Dexys Midnight Runners, Kingfishr, Shygirl, Corto.Alto, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Elkie Brooks, Ibibio Sound Machine, Madra Salach, Moses Boyd, Mulaa Joans and Emily Bear, though it does not say which night each plays.
The bar is high: series 68 wrapped in June with Niall Horan, Florence + The Machine, Lola Young, Jessie Ware, Holly Humberstone, Mitski, Ellie Goulding and James Blake. Royal Blood’s fifth album, Dead Company, is due in November, and Bloc Party shared their seventh, Anatomy Of A Brief Romance, in September. Episode one airs Sunday on BBC Two.
- Premieres
- Sunday, Oct. 11, BBC Two
- Filmed at
- Alexandra Palace Theatre, London
- Episode one
- Paul Heaton, Johnny Marr (interview), Skye Newman, Mary In The Junkyard, DC3, Dermot Henry
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 11, 2026.
