Hungary Shot the Hospital and the Holiday for Little Disasters

Little Disasters shot its French holiday and its British hospital in Budapest, then used Richmond for the south-west London streets the story calls home. The six-part thriller, adapted from Sarah Vaughan’s novel, reached Channel 5 on 14 June 2026 at 9pm after a Paramount+ run.

The locations roundup treats that as scenery. The work sat with a Hungarian unit, an art department that had to sell Provence, and a shorter UK crew told to match a look already locked.

Budapest Played Provence and the A&E Ward

Principal photography for Little Disasters sat in Budapest in June and July 2024, with London work later that year. Roughcut Television made the series with Fremantle for Paramount+ UK and Ireland. Eva Sigurðardóttir directed every episode. Ruth Fowler created it, and Fowler wrote the scripts with Amanda Duke.

Diane Kruger plays Jess Carrisford, the mother who brings an injured baby into hospital. Jo Joyner plays Dr Liz Burgess, the friend on duty who has to decide whether to call social services. That call is the plot. Joyner has said the hospital scenes were in Budapest, in the first couple of weeks.

Hungary doubled for Provence. It was beautiful out in the countryside, and it was the first time that the cast had all been together.

Jo Joyner, who plays Liz

So the French rental house in episode 2 and the A&E ward that opens episode 1 were the same country. France never hosted a unit. The cameras were in Hungary, and the art team had to make both places feel true.

Why Little Disasters Shot in Hungary

Budapest is used this way because the city is built to be used this way. Csaba Kael, chairman of the National Film Institute of Hungary, puts it in architectural terms: the place has been wrecked and rebuilt so often that crews can shoot Paris, Rome, Moscow, even London. He calls it a set designer’s dream. Productions already use it as Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Provence is one more dress.

WHERE THE CAMERAS ACTUALLY WERE

Money sits under that map. Films and series made in Hungary can claim a 30 percent cash rebate on Hungarian spend, paid as a refund after the shoot, under a scheme the European Commission signed off in 2024 through the end of 2030. The rate can rise if some costs outside Hungary are counted; the headline figure productions plan around is still 30 percent.

A British story still has to pass for south-west London. That is why the production did not stay in Budapest. It came home for the streets, the park and the houses that sell the class the plot then breaks.

A Safe Neighbourhood of £3 Million Houses

Jess’s house is in Richmond, in the expensive part, as the cast interviews put it. In episode 4, Mel and Jess go into Richmond Park, and that trip ends in another hospital visit. Writer Amanda Duke grew up in that patch of London, and some of the park work was shot in places she used to take her own child.

This aspirational, safe neighbourhood where some people live in beautiful £3 million houses, whilst others are hanging on.

Amanda Duke, writer

Duke said she knew the hopeful side of that world, and the NCT friends you may have nothing in common with who still become a lifeline. The series needs that surface. The book is set there. If the houses look cheap, Liz’s phone call has less to smash.

Civic London was in on it too. In August 2024, Richmond councillor James Chard wrote that York House was set to host scenes from the Vaughan adaptation, and that the council was pleased to be tied to the title. A reply noted it was a TV series, not a film. Whether those interiors made the cut is a viewing question; the hire itself shows how much of the UK work was real Richmond fabric rather than a backlot France.

The Art Department Sold the Holiday Table

Joyner’s praise for the Hungary block is really praise for craft. She said the crew filmed in a location with a lot of outdoor space, and that the art designers did a fantastic job. The scene she kept was a long dinner table, all the couples around it, with small signs that something darker was running under the wine.

WHAT THE HUNGARY BLOCK HAD TO DELIVER

• The hospital: Kruger’s first A&E scenes and Joyner’s first social-services call were shot there in the opening weeks, with a baby who Joyner said was healthy and bubbly off camera.
• The holiday house: Episode 2’s Provence rental, including the drunk, cheeky stretch and the row Joyner played with Kruger.
• The weather: Joyner and Patrick Baladi, who plays Andrew, both put the heat at 38 degrees.
• The off-hours: Dinners, scooters down to the river, and the first stretch of time the whole group was in one place.

Shelley Conn, who plays Charlotte, said Hungary had an idyllic glow, work then dinner, nothing forced. Baladi said his girlfriend visited for a week and they went out on electric scooters with JJ Feild and Feild’s partner, learning Budapest traffic on the way to lunch. Stephen Campbell Moore, who plays Rob, talked about ease and trust with Emily Taaffe, who plays Mel, and about forgiveness when a take was not working.

Joyner also sat in the makeup chair at 38 degrees with broken veins and dark circles painted on, next to Kruger, while the rest of the group tried a pink wig and argued over baby bumps for the flashbacks. She posted that haul herself.

View this post on Instagram

Those posts are the production’s tell. The “French” light is a Hungarian summer. The bruises on Liz are makeup. The bumps are chosen, not grown. The show is about a perfect surface that does not hold, and the shoot was in the business of building that surface.

Six Sunny Weeks to Match a Hungarian Look

The UK unit’s job was narrower, and that is the point. A gaffer on the British block wrote that the crew spent six sunny weeks in south-west London in summer 2024, keeping the look the Hungarian unit had already set so the series would feel like one lived-in Richmond world. Lighting kits stayed small and mobile. Night exteriors used balloons and LED. The weather played along.

That is a second-unit problem dressed up as a locations story. If Budapest and Richmond do not match, the hospital in episode 1 and the house in episode 4 sit in different films. The Hungarian block went first. Richmond had to catch up. Joyner’s own notes from the Hungary block put the first half of the shoot there, then a return home to finish in Richmond, with a hair change in between so Liz would not arrive from the wrong season.

Kruger later said the work was stressful, and that having her daughter with her was the light at the end of the day. The French double did not become the public argument. People argued about the phone call to social services. The production had already bet that if the table, the ward and the park held, nobody would ask which country paid for them.

Putting the Thriller on Channel 5 in June 2026

Paramount+ UK and Ireland got the series first, on 22 May 2025, as a box set. Paul Testar, who commissioned it with Sebastian Cardwell, said they were big fans of Vaughan’s novel and were glad to be doing the adaptation with Roughcut. Kruger leads a cast that also includes Ben Bailey Smith as Liz’s husband Nick, JJ Feild as Ed, and the rest of the friendship circle. Vaughan is on the executive producer list. Myf Hopkins produced.

FROM COMMISSION TO CHANNEL 5

1. May 2023: Paramount+ commissions the six-part series from Roughcut Television and Fremantle.
2. June and July 2024: The Budapest block shoots the hospital and the Provence double, with production already underway in June.
3. Later 2024: The UK unit shoots Richmond, including six sunny weeks in south-west London; first-look images follow in December 2024.
4. 22 May 2025: All episodes land on Paramount+ in the UK and Ireland.
5. 11 December 2025: Paramount+ plays the limited series in the US and several other markets.
6. 14 June 2026: Channel 5 strips it at 9pm, the first free-to-air run in Britain.

In the US, Canada, the GSA region, Italy and Latin America, Paramount+ dropped all six episodes on 11 December. Viewers who skipped the streamer can still watch all six episodes on Paramount+, and Channel 5’s June window put the same cut on a linear night. After that first episode, the title sat at the top of the channel’s streaming chart.

The A&E ward British viewers met on 14 June 2026 had been standing in Budapest two summers earlier. The Provence terrace was the same trip. Richmond only had to look as if none of that were true.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Little Disasters Film in France?

No British or Hungarian unit shot in France. Episode 2’s rental house is written as Provence, but the production took over a property during the Budapest block and asked the art department to carry the south of France. The streets and neighbourhoods around the Hungarian capital did the rest of the European dressing.

When Did Little Disasters Premiere in the US?

Paramount+ released the full limited series in the United States on 11 December 2025, the same date as Canada, the GSA region, Italy and Latin America, after the UK and Ireland had already had it from 22 May 2025.

Who Directed Little Disasters?

Eva Sigurðardóttir directed all six episodes. Paramount’s own notes list her as a BAFTA nominee, with Good Night and Rainbow Party among the titles attached to her name, and they frame the series as realism mixed with suspense rather than as a crime procedural.

What Book Is Little Disasters Based On?

It is adapted from Sarah Vaughan’s 2020 novel of the same title. Vaughan also wrote Anatomy of a Scandal, and she is credited as an executive producer on the series beside Roughcut’s Ash Atalla, Alex Smith and Marianna Abbotts, with Simon Judd for Fremantle.