Jo Joyner plays a hospital doctor placed in an impossible situation in new psychological thriller, Little Disasters, being shown on Paramount Plus from May 22, 2025.
Jo (EastEnders, Shakespeare & Hathaway) stars as A&E doctor, Liz. However, when Betsy, the baby daughter of a good friend, Jess (Diane Kruger), is rushed to hospital and discovered to have life-threatening head injuries, there are questions to be answered and a friendship group of parents is blown apart.
Based on the best-selling novel by Sarah Vaughan (Anatomy of a Scandal), the six-part drama sees Liz, who has known Jess since they met ten years ago at an antenatal class, forced to alert social services when Jess is unable to explain her daughter Betsy's injuries.
Jo says, "As a doctor, Liz has protocol to follow and although Liz knows Jess is not the sort of person to harm her child, she also knows good people can do bad things. Liz ends up contacting social services and once she’s made that call, there’s no going back."
What To Watch spoke to Jo who, along with Diane Kruger (Troy) stars with Shelley Conn (Bridgerton), Emily Taafe (The Beast Must Die), JJ Feild (Lost in Space), Patrick Baladi (DI Ray), Ben Bailey-Smith (The Sixth Commandment), and Stephen Campbell Moore (Masters Of The Air) to hear more....
Interview with Jo Joyner
What appealed most to you about this role?
Jo says, " I loved the premise. There's no better place than an antenatal class to get an unlikely bunch of women together. They all have very different views and parenting vibes but are bonded by being in the same rocky ship of first-time motherhood."
How would you describe Liz in Little Disasters?
"Liz is a doctor who is very down to earth. She’s got a good marriage (to Nick, played by Ben Bailey Smith) but is constantly torn between her work, being a mum, and that feeling of never quite being enough for everyone, which I could identify with. I relished the chance to play someone who says it how it is and is quite gung ho."
The drama shines a light on the harrowing experience of postnatal OCD doesn’t it…
"Postnatal OCD very much lends itself to a psychological thriller. Any kind of postnatal depression must be horrendous. Liz knows that Jess is not the sort of person to harm her child but she also knows that good people can do bad things. As a doctor Liz has protocol to follow but once she’s made that call to social services there’s no going back."
Did being a parent yourself help you approach the complex dynamics between the friends?
"Definitely. You see the characters facing some awful dilemmas. In my own life I have close friends who are wonderful mums. This story made me think about how it would put a bomb amongst us if any of us felt we needed to report something like this."
There are some stunning locations in the show. Which did you enjoy the most?
"We filmed a lot of the series and interior shots in Budapest, which also doubles as Provence, France (in Episode 2). One of the bonuses of being on location is that you can hang out more with each other. We managed a fair few dinners together in Budapest, but you could tell we are a cast of a certain age, there was no clubbing - it was all nice wine, nice meal, bed by 11 o'clock, and a lot of crosswords on set in between scenes! "
Little Disasters airs from Thursday, May 22, 2025 on Paramount Plus.
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