Disney+ original "Alice and Steve" premieres at CANNESERIES festival

CANNESERIES 2026 just handed Disney+ one of its most talked-about moments of the festival season. On April 27, 2026, the British comedy series Alice and Steve held its world premiere on the French Riviera, drawing an enthusiastic crowd that rewarded the first two episodes with a standing ovation. Not bad for a show nobody had seen a single frame of until that night.

A British comedy lands on the Croisette

The CANNESERIES competition, now firmly established as one of Europe's top platforms for serialized television, gave Alice and Steve exactly the kind of international spotlight a Disney+ Original needs ahead of its streaming debut. The six-part series traveled from its UK production roots straight to Cannes, where the screening drew a notably warm reception from an audience made up of industry professionals and press.

The creative team showed up in force. Writer-creator Sophie Goodhart, known for her work on Sex Education, led the charge alongside director Tom Kingsley — the man behind Stath Lets Flats — and executive producer Andy Baker from Clerkenwell Films, the production company also responsible for Baby Reindeer. Series producer Frances du Pille completed the production contingent on the red carpet.

The cast lineup was equally impressive. Nicola Walker (The Split, Unforgotten), Jemaine Clement (What We Do in the Shadows, Flight of the Conchords), Yali Topol Margalith (The Tattooist of Auschwitz) and Joel Fry (Cruella) all made the trip to the south of France. That's a group of actors with serious credibility across drama, comedy and prestige television — a combination that signals Disney+ isn't treating this as filler content.

Disney has been expanding its original content strategy aggressively in recent years. We've been tracking that push closely, including moves like the Disney+ exclusive content deal with Japan's The Seven, which illustrates just how broadly the platform is casting its net for distinctive productions.

What the show is actually about

Strip away the festival glamour and you get a premise that's genuinely sharp. Alice and Steve centers on Alice (played by Nicola Walker), whose world tilts sideways when her closest friend, Steve (Clement), starts a relationship with her 26-year-old daughter Izzy (Topol Margalith). The situation puts Alice in an impossible position — she risks losing both her best friend and her daughter to the same relationship.

Rather than accepting the situation, Alice goes on the offensive. She tries every tactic she can think of to break the couple apart. The twist ? Steve sees her coming. What starts as a quiet, intimate friendship between Alice and Steve gradually becomes an all-out war of personalities. The show describes itself as an anti-romantic comedy, which already sets it apart from the standard streaming fare.

Here's what the series sets out to explore across its six episodes :

• The fragility of long-term friendship when romantic entanglements enter the picture
• Family dynamics between a mother and an adult daughter with competing emotional needs
• The thin line between genuine care and possessive behavior
• How far a person will go — whether for love or for something closer to revenge

It's a messy, human setup. The standing ovation at CANNESERIES suggests it lands on screen with the same energy it carries on paper.

Release details and platform availability

For anyone already planning their watchlist, here's what we know about where and when Alice and Steve will be available to stream :

All six episodes drop simultaneously on Monday, June 8, 2026 — a full-season release model that suits the binge-friendly nature of a six-part comedy. No weekly drip. No cliffhangers left unresolved for seven days. That format choice makes sense given the show's serialized emotional arc.

We'll be updating availability across other Disney+ territories as that information comes in. Based on Disney's typical rollout pattern for British originals, additional markets should follow within a short window after the UK launch.

Why this premiere matters beyond the red carpet

Premiering at CANNESERIES isn't just a prestige move — it's a strategic signal. The festival, which runs its competition in April each year, gives streaming platforms a credible stage to build pre-release awareness roughly six to eight weeks before a show actually lands on their platform. For Disney+, timing the Alice and Steve premiere here puts the series in conversation with international press and buyers well before the June 8 launch.

The talent assembled behind this production carries real weight. Clerkenwell Films bringing Baby Reindeer to screens was one of the defining streaming moments of 2024. Sophie Goodhart's background on Sex Education gives the writing strong credentials in the kind of emotionally complex comedy that audiences are actively seeking out right now.

From our side, tracking what's landing where and when, Alice and Steve is shaping up as one of the more interesting Disney+ originals to hit the platform this summer. The Cannes standing ovation is a useful data point — but the real test comes on June 8, when the full audience gets access. Mark the date.