This Way Up (TV series)

This Way Up is a British comedy-drama television series broadcast on Channel 4. It is set in London, and is written by and stars Aisling Bea. Sharon Horgan who also stars in the series is the executive-producer.

The first series was shown in 2019, and the second in 2021. The series is distributed in the United States on Hulu.

Premise
In This Way Up Bea plays a young, single Irish woman, Áine, who lives in London and is recovering from a nervous breakdown. She works as a teacher of English as a second language, and in series 2 she has a relationship with the father of a child she is tutoring. Horgan plays Áine's protective elder sister, Shona, who lives with her male partner but is also sexually attracted to a female colleague.

Main

 * Aisling Bea as Áine
 * Sharon Horgan as Shona, Áine's sister
 * Dorian Grover as Étienne, Áine's French pupil
 * Tobias Menzies as Richard, Étienne's father
 * Aasif Mandvi as Vish, Shona's partner
 * Indira Varma as Charlotte, Shona's colleague
 * Kadiff Kirwan as Bradley, Áine's flatmate

Recurring

 * Chris Geere as Freddie, Áine's ex-boyfriend
 * Ricky Grover as Tom, Áine's friend from rehab
 * Ekow Quartey as James, Áine's boss
 * Pik-Sen Lim as Chien, one of Áine's students
 * Ambreen Razia as Emma, Bradley's girlfriend

Guest

 * Sorcha Cusack as Eileen, Áine and Shona's mother
 * Lou Sanders as Fran, a psychic Áine visits
 * Jeff Mirza as Hari, Vish's father
 * Soni Razdan as Kavita, Vish's mother
 * Chetna Pandya as Seema, Vish's sister
 * Nikhil Parmar as Anil, Vish's brother
 * Tom Bell as David, Áine and Shona's Cousin

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, series 1 has an approval rating of 90% based on reviews from 20 critics. The site's consensus describes the show as "Devastating, hilarious, and surprisingly light, This Way Up captures the complexities of mental health with an empathetic – if at times wandering – eye." Bustle compared it positively with Fleabag. It also gained comparisons with Back to Life and Catastrophe. The Daily Telegraph called This Way Up "one of the best new shows of the year", awarding it five stars. In The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg was less positive, but called it a "solid and familiar blend of comic and melancholic". The Atlantic praised the show, calling it "small in scope, infinitely charming, and intermittently devastating".

At the 2020 BAFTA Television Craft Awards, Bea won the Breakthrough Talent Award and in 2022 was nominated for Best Female Comedy Performance at the British Academy Television Awards.