Have you ever booked a holiday based on somewhere you’ve seen in a TV show or movie? On a video call with Citizen Femme’s managing editor Katie Silcox, Antonia Thomas reveals that she and her boyfriend did exactly this after seeing Zihuatanejo in Mexico mentioned in The Shawshank Redemption.
Perhaps her new BBC series Two Weeks in August – created and written by Catherine Shepherd, and which follows a group of friends as they holiday on a Greek island – will inspire you in the way that The Shawshank Redemption inspired Antonia. Maybe the holiday you’ve been discussing will finally move out of the group chat. Or perhaps Antonia’s new show will discourage you from ever taking a group trip again…
The eight-part series, which premieres on BBC One this week (23 May, 9pm) follows a group of friends reuniting in Greece for what’s supposed to be a relaxed getaway together but which, between friendship tensions and group dynamics, starts to unravel quickly, turning a dream holiday into a nightmare.
While viewers will be utterly convinced that the show was shot in Greece, Antonia tells us it was actually shot across five months on the island of Malta. While there, she spent some time shooting with other cast members – which include Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife, Line of Duty), Hugh Skinner (Fleabag, The Windsors, Mamma Mia!) and Nicholas Pinnock (For Life, Marcella, Top Boy) – but as the on-screen group dynamic ruptures, and the cast therefore split up to film non-group scenes, she found time to explore the island. “I got lots of things done. I wrote, I went exploring, I visited beautiful old churches. It was really lovely,” she recalls. “There was loads to see and do: beautiful beaches, lovely food.”
“Often you’re filming in places like Cardiff or Leeds, so it was really exciting to go to Malta and be in the middle of the Mediterranean,” she reflects. While filming “I took a trip to Sicily for a long weekend, which was gorgeous and only an hour and a half away.” Antonia is no stranger to working away from home though: “a TV shoot could be three to five months,” she tells us, “and it can be longer. I shot The Good Doctor for nine months in Canada.”
TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST 2026 © Various Artists Limited/BBC/Photographer: Robert Viglasky
It was while she was in Canada that she and her boyfriend decided to visit Zihuatanejo, a coastal fishing town on the Pacific Coast of Guerrero, Mexico. “I was filming in Canada for a long chunk of time, and getting to Mexico was easy,” she says. “We decided to go because we were watching The Shawshank Redemption (again) and at the end they say ‘we’ll meet in Zihuatanejo.’ I asked, ‘where’s that?’ so we went and it was just incredible.”
That spontaneous trip paid off, “a lot of Mexican holiday destinations can feel quite American; this place is where Mexicans go to have a holiday,” she reflects. “It felt like a more traditional experience: street tacos and pozole, people dancing in the streets.” Thanks to more spontaneous plans, she also “discovered this incredible little island. We found it because we followed some Mexican tourists going there, and had lobster on the beach.”
But, she insists, she’s not usually so spontaneous when it comes to her own personal travels, adding that her preference is to travel with people: “I have travelled solo, but if you’re having an amazing meal or seeing an incredible sunset, it’s more fun sharing it with people.” She’s no stranger to group travel in real life either, telling us she’s taken many group holidays and, in fact, has recently come back from a trip to Dominica in the Caribbean with family (“I’m a hot-destination kind of a gal. I love the Caribbean; I’m half Jamaican, so I guess it’s in my blood”).
Photography: Balazs Weidner / Styling: Sophia Katyea / Makeup: Lydia Warhurst / Hair: Valentina Ingrosso
“I think group holidays are the best, but the dynamics have to be right,” she muses, reflecting on a group holiday she’s taken with friends: “they all knew each other, we all knew our different roles; there were people that were strong cooks, and there were people to bring the fun and games. It worked really well.”
Some of the tricky-to-navigate dynamics that emerge in her upcoming BBC show include couples with different lifestyles to each other, friends with different budgets, and different family units – some travelling with children, others without. While these dynamics may or may not be the cause for the demise of the friend group (and holiday) in Two Weeks in August remains to be seen – but each can cause real-life ruptures in friend groups, especially when taking group holidays together. Antonia agrees: “no matter how much you love your friends, it’s not the norm to go on holiday with a big group of people and to be living together, you know?”
TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST 2026 © Various Artists Limited/BBC/Photographer: Robert Viglasky
“I think the place has to have enough of something for everyone,” she states. “There needs to be somewhere that you can get away to.” Games, swimming pools, the sea and boat trips are some of her suggestions. “It’s also important to think about personality types, and who’s going to want to do what, and when,” she continues. “In order to build a safety net, it’s really important to think about the location and the amenities – the danger comes when you’re all under the same roof and you can’t get away.”
Flexibility will also help ease tensions that might occur due to budget constraints, Antonia says, continuing that “there just has to be transparency about it: what do people want to do? What’s the general consensus?” “It’s unfair to go on holiday with a group of people, and expect everyone to eat out every single night,” she gives as an example, “it’s better to say ‘we might go out a couple of nights, and no pressure if you don’t want to – we can also do a big group shop.’” “But it’s tricky,” she continues, “because my character [in my new show] was like, ‘let’s do a group shop!’ but then some people didn’t want to put in as much money as others.”
Location is “really important” too, she says – namely for the reasons outlined already. Being stuck on a tiny Greek island with not very much to do, for example, might mean that those in the group who want to escape for a few hours find it tricky to do so. Location is important money-wise too: “if you’re going on a luxury holiday to Bequia or somewhere in Italy, and you’re staying in an extremely expensive place, I think there has to be an element of understanding [from the people joining the group trip] that it’s probably going to be expensive,” she says. “Otherwise, you have to choose a location that has a bit of something for everyone: if someone wants to go and splurge at a restaurant they can do that, but other people can also cook at home.”
Speaking to the group dynamics of some parties travelling with children and others not – a theme explored in the show – Antonia believes that “it can work.” “It doesn’t by any means ruin a holiday. It just means it’s going to be something slightly different,” she says. “Children are their own kind of force; they have a different schedule which can dictate a dynamic. My friends that have kids are really laid back – they just make sure that they have their own car, so they can do their own thing. Some of my friends bring a nanny – much like my character in the show – so that they can have the evening off.”
Summing up her thoughts on how to plan the perfect group holiday, Antonia advises that “planning a perfect group getaway is about the right combination of people, where everybody’s roles within that friendship group are slightly different – and it needs to be paired with a location that has enough of something for everybody.”
But, ultimately, and as depicted in both Antonia’s new show and in this conversation, group holidays can be complex; they can bring out the best – or worst – in any friend group, and it’s not always easy to navigate the dynamics, or to avoid arguments while you do. “I guess this is what our show is about,” Antonia concludes. “I think that’s the reason Catherine’s writing in the show is so good; it is just so universal.”
Katie Silcox is Citizen Femme’s managing editor who writes about travel and culture. Originally from the UK, she’s also lived in India, the UAE and Greece, where island hopping was her favourite summer pastime. She’s previously worked across titles including Condé Nast Traveller, GQ and Architectural Digest.
Lead image: TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST 2026 © Various Artists Limited/BBC/Photographer: Colin Hutton
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