Aisling Bea has confirmed that there will be a second run for her acclaimed series This Way Up, which she wrote and starred in.
Bea revealed the news in an interview for Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast. It was the very last face-to-face interview in the series in mid-March before lockdown.
In This Way Up, made by C4 in association with Hulu, Bea plays Aine, an English-as-a-foreign language (TEFL) teacher trying to pull her life back together after a “teeny little nervous breakdown", as her sister Shona (Sharon Horgan) worries, not only about her younger sibling, but also about her own life choices.
The first series also featured Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show, Halal in the Family) as Shona’s boyfriend Vish, Tobias Menzies (The Crown, Outlander, Game Of Thrones) as Richard, father to one of Aine’s students and Indira Varma (Patrick Melrose, Luther, Game of Thrones) as Shona’s colleague and confidante Charlotte.
In a wide-ranging, illuminating interview with Herring about her life and career and recent infected gum Bea talked about working in America on various projects including the Netflix hit Living With Yourself with the impossibly youthful Paul Rudd. The Irish star explained how relocating to America was not a major psychological challenge having already moved away from home to work in England. Everyone was basically the same, she suggested: "Paul Rudd still needs a poo."
She also explained how she and frequent collaborator Sharon Horgan had spent two years working on a show called Delilah only for Channel 4 to say they had another show set in Ireland about a group of women so they didn't think they should have their one. The one C4 made was Derry Girls, which Bea says is her favourite comedy. Bea and Horgan are now ferrying Delilah around elsewhere.
