BBC Behind Holiday Disaster Drama From ‘Shrink Next Door’ Scribe Catherine Shepherd & Various Artists

EXCLUSIVE: I May Destroy You producer Various Artists Limited (VAL) has landed its latest BBC project, a drama series about a family holiday to Greece that turns into a nightmare.

VAL is currently casting on Two Weeks in August [working title], which comes from The Shrink Next Door writer Catherine Shepherd.

Two Weeks in August tells the story of a woman who goes on holiday with her family and friends to rediscover joy in her life. Zoe begins to act on her deepest desires and the holiday she hoped for becomes a reckoning for a group of adults who refuse to grow up. But when they discover they are trapped on the island, and become faced with real life-or-death situations, the group soon turn on each other to find out who is to blame.

VAL is on a hot streak with the BBC, having delivered Such Brave Girls, Juice and Spent in the past couple of years. It is also making I May Destroy You creator Michaela Coel’s new series First Day on Earth for the BBC and HBO.

Shepherd is a writer-actor who has appeared in Sally4Ever and Peep Show. She recently wrote episodes of Apple TV+ hit The Shrink Next Door starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd but has not penned a show for the BBC before. In the directors’ chair for Two Weeks in August is This Country’s Tom George and Colin From Accounts’ Matthew Moore.

VAL’s Roberto Troni and Kat Reynolds called the show “painfully funny and heartbreakingly original.”

Shepherd added: “This is a story about what it’s like to try and be happy in a very anxious and confusing world and at its core, about a woman struggling to play all the roles she’s been given by life. How do you enjoy yourself for two weeks in August when the world appears to be falling apart around you? I hope it will be as funny and sad, as thrilling, beautiful, ridiculous and heartbreaking as real relationships between humans are.”

Two Weeks in August is filming in the production hub of Malta, which may speak to the BBC’s current need to seek innovative methods of funding drama in the face of American money falling out of the market.

Two Weeks in August was commissioned by BBC drama boss Lindsay Salt. Shepherd and George are EPs alongside Troni and Reynolds for BBC Studios-backed VAL, and Jo McClellan for the BBC. Rhonda Smith will produce. ITV Studios is selling worldwide.

Salt said: “We could not be happier to have Two Weeks in August to look forward to. Catherine’s writing is razor sharp and hilarious, but ultimately full of compassion and humanity, and it’s an honour to join forces with her and VAL to bring her first original drama series to the BBC.“