‘There’s Danger Lurking Everywhere’: Inside Two Weeks In August’s Filming Locations

It may only be May, but with a scorching heat wave descending on the UK and a gripping new Grecian tale landing on our screens, it truly could be August.

Premiering with a double bill tomorrow night (Saturday 23 May) at 9pm, Two Weeks in August is all about that long-dreamt of group holiday that finally made it out of the group chat, only to turn out not quite like everyone hoped. As star Antonia Thomas puts it in an interview with C&TH: ‘A fun, dramatic group dynamic that should be filled with fun and laughter and reliving youth and brilliance actually just starts to crumble, because people that haven’t seen each other for 10 years are all under one roof, and kind of start to grate on one another.’

Thomas plays Jess, and is part of a stellar leading ensemble which also includes Jess Raine as Zoe, Damien Molony as Dan, Leila Farzas as Nat, Hugh Skinner as Jacob and Nicholas Pinnock as Solomon. University friends now in their late 30s, they book a villa in Greece where, cabin-fever style, all goes awry, with an illicit kiss the catalyst in a chain of irreversibly sour events.

Leila Farzad as Nat, Hugh Skinner as Jacob, Dylan Brady as Will, Jessica Raine as Zoe, Nicholas Pinnock as Solomon, Antonia Thomas as Jess and Maria Almeida as Avery in Two Weeks In August. (Various Artists Limited/BBC/Robert Viglasky)

While it is a totally fictitious tale, series creator Catherine Shephard drew on her own experiences to craft the eight-part downward spiral. ‘I have had quite a lot of group holidays, many more successful than this one, particularly,’ she tells C&TH. ‘I’ve always been interested in the dynamics of a group holiday and a group of friends, particularly friends who haven’t seen each other for a while and are having different experiences of life. And what that does when your friends have children, when one of your friends is really successful and you’re not, or you haven’t got quite enough money – all of those things tend to start coming to the surface on a holiday. I think all those dynamics are really funny, but going away is very exposing for your relationships – romantic and friendships. It’s the thing I’ve always been interested in writing about.’

As for the Greek setting, that stemmed from a childhood of Hellenic adventures for Shepherd. ‘For my dad particularly, the Greek god exist. They’re very much part of my imagination,’ she shares. In Two Weeks in August, then, she overlays modern anxieties with the myths that have captivated human imagination for millennia.

Dan (DAMIEN MOLONY) & Zoe (JESSICA RAINE) in Two Weeks In August. (Various Artists Ltd/BBC/Robert Viglasky)

‘There was one particular evening which really stayed with me, and thematically inspired the show,’ Shepherd shares. ‘We were all having sundowners on the terrace after a day on the beach in Corfu. We looked over and could see Albania across the sea, and we could see red tracer bullet fire – people were shooting at each other across the water. It was far enough away that we thought, “Well, we’re safe. We don’t know what’s going on in Albania, let’s just have dinner.” That darkly comic thing… This desire to try and have a good time, even when really bad things are happening all around you, has always stayed with me.’

However: ‘For various reasons, we couldn’t set up [and film] in Greece,’ Shepherd says. ‘So we needed to find somewhere that looked like Greece – Mediterranean heat and water.’ Here’s where Two Weeks in August landed.

Nat (LEILA FARZAD) in Two Weeks In August. (Various Artists Ltd/BBC/Robert Viglasky)

Where Was Two Weeks In August Filmed?

It’s not Greece but Malta that we see on screen – a nation which is ‘brilliantly set up for filming,’ writer Shepherd shares. The team filmed here from March to July 2025, predominantly at a villa found on the island which was retrofitted with a swimming pool for the show’s needs.

Tucked in the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Africa, Malta – a small archipelago made up of three inhabited islands, Malta, Gozo and Comina, and a few uninhabited islets – has been populated since at least 6,500 BCE, giving it a rich history and melting-pot culture. Indeed the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and Romans variously ruled the islands in antiquity, and the honey-colored globigerina stone used for almost all buildings bears a resemblance to the classic Mediterranean aesthetic of many of Greece’s islands. There’s a similar geography, too: exposed limestone, dramatic craggy cliffs, and a bright blue sea crashing against them.

Zoe (JESSICA RAINE) in Two Weeks In August. (Various Artists Ltd/BBC/Robert Viglasky)

This push and pull of beauty and jeopardy was particularly attractive to Shepherd, especially considering her ‘darkly comic’ inspiration. On the setting, ‘it’s beautiful, but there’s something ever so slightly dangerous about it,’ she says. ‘We found the beach on Gozo, and the harbour with clear green water. It looks very Greek, but it also has something slightly unusual about it. It’s very beautiful but quite rugged, and some of it has a real edge to it. I think it works brilliantly, because the island is sort of nowhere in particular – it’s Greece but slightly at an angle.’

The same was introduced at the villa, which was chosen for its ‘incredible view,’ Shepherd confirms. But the team ‘then had to build a huge extension with a swimming pool, which then had to be removed,’ Shepherd says. ‘It was an amazing feat: finding that and creating it. That was the most challenging thing.’

‘It was very important for our director, Tom George, to have an element of danger lurking at every opportunity,’ Moloney adds. ‘The steps down to the pool are jagged and sharp. The pool doesn’t have any fencing around it, so the children can play quite dangerously. In episode three, they go for dinner and the waves are crashing up against the side of the restaurant. There’s danger lurking everywhere, emotionally as well as physically.’

Jess (ANTONIA THOMAS) in Two Weeks In August. (Various Artists Ltd/BBC/Robert Viglasky)

Speaking to C&TH, the core lead cast gushed about filming in Malta. ‘Malta was beautiful,’ Thomas confirms. ‘I was delighted when I heard that we were going to be filming there. I’ve never been before, and filming in the middle of the Mediterranean for five months just seemed lovely. What was great was we got to see a lot of the island that, I think if you went as a tourist, you might not be able to see. We filmed down on some really private, remote beaches, which was gorgeous.’

Moloney describes Malta as ‘fabulous’, adding: ‘It’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sharks, but it is so beautiful and so full of history.’ But don’t be fooled but the saturated sun and sea. ‘One thing that was surprising was the weather,’ Thomas reflects. ‘We started in March and ended in July, and it was supposed to be boiling hot in August but it was actually quite cold in March. We were in bikinis and swimwear jumping in pools and it was freezing. They were running in hot water bottles and big coats and hand warmers between setups.’

‘Honestly, the best acting I’ve ever done is pretending to swim in that pool. It was incredibly cold,’ Moloney quips.

Solomon (NICHOLAS PINNOCK), Jacob (HUGH SKINNER) & Nat (LEILA FARZAD) in Two Weeks In August. (Various Artists Limited/BBC/Colin Hutton)

WATCH

Two Weeks in August premieres Saturday 23 May 2026 with a double bill from 9pm. Catch up on BBC iPlayer.