Jessica Raine Leads Two Weeks In August to Saturday 23 May Debut
Two Weeks in August debuts on Saturday 23 May, and Jessica Raine leads the new eight-part drama as Zoe. has set a fixed launch across One and iPlayer, giving the series a clear start date after its release announcement.
Jessica Raine as Zoe
Raine plays Zoe, who goes on holiday with family and friends in Greece to rediscover joy in her life. An illicit kiss turns that trip into a nightmare, and the group becomes trapped on the island as tensions rise into real life-or-death situations.
That setup gives the drama more than a simple holiday premise. It moves from private choice to group pressure fast, with the characters turning on each other to work out who is to blame.
Catherine Shepherd's character work
Catherine Shepherd said she spent a week with an amazing clinical psychologist while building the characters. “I spent a week with an amazing clinical psychologist, and we looked at all the characters, created their family trees and talked about who they were and why they were like that.” She added, “It was incredibly interesting and really helped ensure the psychology of who the characters were was truthful.”
Shepherd also said, “By the time I came to write the scripts, I knew them so well,” and, “I almost knew exactly what they would do in any given situation – it was really exciting.” That level of preparation helps explain why the series is being sold as “tantalisingly erotic” rather than as standard holiday drama.
Damien Molony and five cast members
Damien Molony, Nicholas Pinnock, Leila Farzad, Antonia Thomas and Hugh Skinner also appear in the series. With five cast members named alongside Raine, the drama has a cast large enough to sustain the shifting alliances that the plot description sets up.
Shepherd said she hoped viewers would find the relationships “as funny and sad, as thrilling, beautiful, ridiculous and heartbreaking as real relationships between humans are.” Raine framed Zoe more directly: “The big question of the series is how the audience is going to respond to a character like Zoe – the decisions she makes to get what she wants, and the consequences because of that.”
For viewers, the practical takeaway is simple: the wait now has a date, and the new series lands on both One and iPlayer on Saturday 23 May. That makes Two Weeks in August a straightforward appointment watch rather than a vague arrival on the schedule.
