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As I immediately tell cast members Jessica Raine, Damien Molony, Antonia Thomas and Nicholas Pinnock, I don't always think it's a good idea to holiday with friends. Watching their unhinged new BBC iPlayer drama Two Weeks in August only confirms that further.
Across its eight episodes, a group of university friends reunites for a long-awaited summer holiday, but marriage, children, and mental health struggles have reshaped their relationships. In a nutshell, it's like if Love Island met ill-fated 2000s reality TV show Holiday Showdown.
Throughout the first few episodes, it's fun to work out exactly when you'd have booked a flight back to Stansted Airport when things start going awry. For me, it's when Jess (Thomas) casually asks each couple to put €200 into a pot for dinner funds as if it's chump change. But while annoying, the stakes are still low.
Where Two Weeks in August eventually takes its audience couldn't be guessed in a month of Sundays — and it's that much of a fever dream that you'll wonder if you've spent too long sitting in the sun yourself... and you're not even on holiday.
For those who are bored with formulaic and predictable crime dramas and thrillers, this is the perfect antidote, and I'd recommend it as one of this year's best hidden gems. And as for the awesome foursome behind it, things felt just as "outlandish" when the cameras were switched off.
'They really start turning on each other and forming alliances you didn't see coming'
"It's such a clever, slow burn," Thomas begins. "An event happening, but it's not immediately explosive, which I think is really true to Brits breaking social codes, but stoically keep going. Catherine's writing is so clever because she lifts the lid on that to try and understand where each person is operating from.
"But it gets more chaotic as it goes on... it spirals more."
By the time we get to episode 4 (no spoilers here), the entire tone of Two Weeks in August has changed. Circumstances have turned from a friend's getaway to something a lot more sinister, aligning with the Greek-themed party we see in the above trailer.
"People were wearing gimp masks, dressed up as bunnies... it got f**cking weird," Raine tells me. "There's a weird sense of sexual tension, pleasure, and desire."
"It's a real bottle episode, and it's bang in the middle of the series, and I think it's really perfectly placed," Molony continues. "Zoe [Raine] and Dan [Molony] are really distant and separated. It was a week of night shoots, and we all went a bit mad."
It's hardly a surprise to see why. From episodes 5-8, the tone gets set to change again, leading up to a finale that's a world away from where we began with an innocent dinner kitty.
"It escalates, and there's a sense of the paradise becoming hell," Raine adds. "You've come away for the sun and to relax, but suddenly it's a case of survival. They physically run out of things. With the group dynamics being as they are, these external pressures make it even more of a pressure cooker.
"People really start turning on each other and form alliances that you didn't see coming. As a viewer, you're like, 'this is really screwed up now.' I named every episode so I could keep them clear in my head, and the final episode I named 'It Burns.' Everything is white heat in every way."
Two Weeks in August will premiere on BBC One and be made available on BBC iPlayer on May 23, 2026.
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