Nicola Walker is about to bring Alice to streaming screens, and the role is anything but calm. Alice and Steve, the six-part dramedy she stars in with Jemaine Clement, arrives June 8 on Disney+ and Hulu, setting up a story about two longtime best friends whose lives blow apart when Steve starts dating Alice’s 26-year-old daughter.

That setup has already helped turn the series into one of the more talked-about TV debuts of the week. Walker, a BAFTA-nominated actor known for Spooks and The Split, plays Alice opposite Clement, best known for Flight of the Conchords and as the creator of What We Do in the Shadows. The show swept Canneseries before launch, giving it a head start with viewers who gravitate toward character-driven comedy-drama.

Walker said she was left furious after filming one of the show’s most punishing scenes, and that response fits the material. Alice is trying to keep her composure while her old friend Steve crosses a line into her family life, and the series leans on that discomfort instead of smoothing it over. Yali Topol Margalith plays Izzy, while Joel Fry plays Alice’s husband, giving the story a family triangle with almost no safe corner.

The series was written by Sophie Goodhart, whose credits include Rivals and Sex Education, and it was filmed with a distinctly close-quarters feel. Walker and Clement’s first scene together was a drunken karaoke bar sequence during the opening days of filming, and Walker later said she had to apologize after the day left her seething. Clement said he felt like the fan on set, while Walker joked that he had probably noticed she is a little method in scene work.

That mix of nerves and familiarity is central to why Alice and Steve is likely to travel. The pair’s bond is supposed to feel deep enough that, as Walker put it, Alice and Steve really know each other, which is what makes the betrayal sting when Steve’s new relationship collides with the family. Even the board-game-night scene in episode two turns into an explosion, a sign that the series is not treating heartbreak as a tidy setup for jokes.

June 8 is the key date now because the show moves from buzz to audience judgment. After Canneseries and with two recognisable leads fronting a story built on friendship, desire and domestic fallout, the only question left is whether viewers want their comedy this uncomfortable. The opening answer comes when Alice and Steve starts streaming.