The six-part comedy drama, written by and starring the Irish comedian (8 out of 10 Cats, Finding Joy), is now streaming on Hulu.
‘This Way Up’ follows Aine (Bea), a foreign language school worker who’s attempting to recover following a nervous breakdown. IFTA-winning actress and writer Sharon Horgan, plays Aine’s concerned sister Shona, a finance whizz helping her sister piece her life back together.
Bea has written all six episodes of the first of season and produces alongside co-star Horgan (Catastrophe,Game Night), whose award-winning production company, Merman, is behind the series.
The series also boasts an impressive supporting cast. Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show, Halal in the Family) plays Shona’s boyfriend Vish, while Tobias Menzies (The Crown, Outlander) also joins the cast as Richard, father to one of Aine’s new students. Indira Varma (Game of Thrones) plays Shona’s colleague and new confidante, Charlotte.
Speaking at the series launchat London’s British Film Institute, Aisling Bea commented:
“I believe you can be irreverent and funny about serious things and it gives them less power in a good way. But I also wanted to make this feel like a show of its own and grubby and rough and messy rather than too polished and shiny.”
“I wrote the part for Sharon. There was never going to be anyone else. What you kind of see on stage or on screen is very real, which is a nice thing because sometimes if you're playing a boyfriend or girlfriend, you're like, ‘Yeah, that's all fake.’”
Co-star Sharon Horgan added:
“As soon as I met Ais I fell in love with her. She just made me laugh a lot and from that point we were trying to find something. We started writing a film together, and there was another project that we spent years on; it didn’t go anywhere. And then she wrote this, and you could see that there was really something there.”
Previously announced under the working title Happy AF, the show initially premiered on Channel 4 on 8thAugust, before streaming on Hulu.