View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Culture
  2. TV
21 August 2019

Channel 4 comedy This Way Up is a funny, moving exploration of loneliness

By Anna Leszkiewicz

After a break-up, an unspecified “nervous breakdown” and a stint in a rehab facility, Aine (Aisling Bea) is on the bumpy road to recovery – back at work teaching English as a foreign language, living in her London flat and leaning on her sister Shona (Sharon Horgan) for support.

With her sister, Aine is electrically funny. Bea (who wrote the show for Channel 4) and Horgan have compulsive chemistry, displaying a mixture of love and irritation specific to siblings: squeezing each other’s spots and giving brutal appraisals of each other’s outfits. (“Don’t make me laugh,” Shona says, dressing for a work event, “I’ll sweat.”) Horgan is very convincing as a worried older sister trying to play it cool, teasing Aine in person, but frantically stalking her location on the Find My Friends app as soon as they’re apart. Without Shona, Aine quickly unravels: wandering parks at night, instigating regrettable sexual encounters, and drinking. (“My problem wasn’t that I was drinking,” she jokes, weakly. “It was that I was too much of a fucking legennnddd!”) Aine has no friends: she is deeply lonely.

The show’s title is both a comment on Aine’s fragility (despite her bravado, her vulnerability shows, as though she’s always wearing a “Handle with Care” sticker) and an emotional roadmap: over the six episodes, she moves slowly in the general direction of “getting better”. Bea was inspired by Fleabag, and there are some borrowed moments: “That’ll be £40, please,” Aine says to a student pretending to order a vodka and Coke mid-lesson – “London prices.” While This Way Up isn’t as laugh-out-loud funny, it has a tender charm of its own, conveying the mundane urgency of mental health problems. Watching Aine muddle through life feels both low-stakes and a matter of life and death. 

Content from our partners
Development finance reform: the key to climate action
Individually rare, collectively common – how do we transform the lives of people with rare diseases?
Future proofing the NHS

This article appears in the 21 Aug 2019 issue of the New Statesman, The great university con

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU