Sharon Horgan has a knack for turning messy human experiences into brilliant television — Catastrophe, Bad Sisters, Motherland — and her next project is no different. Youth, an eight-part HBO series premiering on 20 September 2026, stars Horgan as Alex, a 50-year-old divorcée re-entering the dating world while juggling a publishing career, elderly parents, and an 18-year-old son (played by Aran Murphy, Cillian Murphy's son) who is being pulled into toxic online ideas about masculinity. Rupert Friend, Sharlene Whyte and Robbie Gee round out the cast, with Harriet Walter, Anne Reid, Freddie Fox and Damian Lewis in guest roles.

For TV-location spotters, the filming addresses are half the fun — and Youth leans on some genuinely historic London real estate.

The standout is The Old Sessions House, which doubles as the offices of Alex's literary agency. This isn't a facade: the production shot actual scenes inside the 18th-century building, constructed between 1780 and 1782 as the Middlesex Quarter Sessions courthouse. Bookish bonus: Charles Dickens used it as the courthouse where young Oliver Twist appears before the magistrate in his novel. The building is also a familiar name to London event-goers — it's regularly hired out for weddings and parties, so you can often get inside without a film crew in the way.

Gordon Ramsay's Lucky Cat in Mayfair pops up in the trailer as the backdrop for one of Alex's work meetings, all moody luxury interiors and glassware — an easy stop if you fancy eating where the scene was filmed, though book ahead and expect a splurge.

The quieter residential scenes were shot around Islington in north London, specifically on Wenlock Road and at Union Wharf, a canal-side stretch that shows a calmer, everyday side of the capital. And the production left the UK entirely for at least one shoot: local paper Majorca Daily Bulletin reported that Rupert Friend and crew were filming in Sant Elm, a small, pretty fishing village on Mallorca's southwest coast, back in May 2026. Details of what was shot there are thin, but it suggests some Mediterranean scenes in the mix.

Why should a traveller care? Because Youth is essentially a walking tour of London's more interesting corners — the kind of Georgian courthouses, canal-side streets and slick Mayfair dining rooms you can piece together yourself in an afternoon. Start with coffee near Old Street and a stroll along Wenlock Basin, walk the Regent's Canal toward Union Wharf, then head into town for a look at The Old Sessions House's grand portico (it sits just off Clerkenwell Green, a short hop from Farringdon station). If the show ignites a taste for Mallorca, Sant Elm is a low-key base for hiking toward Sa Dragonera island — far from the island's package-holiday crowds.

Horgan herself has been candid about the series' roots, telling The Guardian that after her own divorce she feared being alone forever, but also discovered an unexpected freedom once her kids finished school. That mix of anxiety and possibility — set against real, lived-in city backdrops — is what makes Youth worth watching, and its locations worth visiting.