‘This Way Up’ captures loneliness like nothing ever before

There’s a scene in This Way Up where Aine turns the key in the door to her flat, says a brief hello to her flatmate, before seeking solace in her bedroom. She climbs into bed and watches TV on her laptop perched atop a chest of drawers. 

It’s a familiar scene — but not in the sense you might think. 

British Channel 4 series This Way Up is, in the words of Aisling Bea who created and stars in the show, “a comedy about loneliness.” As well as being extremely funny, the show is one of the few accurate portrayals of millennial loneliness that truly distills the reality of what it’s like to be lonely in a city packed with people. 

The laptop scene is one that many people who’ve lived in flatshares in London, or other big cities, can relate to. One that speaks to the loneliness you can feel living cheek by jowl with other people. When I watched Aine lying in bed, I was reminded of a similar recurring scene in my own life. Given that recent research by the BBC found that loneliness levels are highest among young people, I’d hazard that this scene is one familiar to a fair few out there. 

It was the week I’d moved into a flat during a particularly lonely era — the fourth time I’d moved in two years. It was a Friday night in London and an annoying voice in my head told me I should be drinking outside a pub or rushing off to some kind of secret rave somewhere. But I wasn’t — I had zero plans. My hope was that my flatmate wouldn’t be home so I didn’t have to acknowledge to another human that I didn’t have anywhere to go on a Friday night. But when I opened the front door, he was sitting there with a crowd of friends. 

I said a perfunctory hello and retreated to my bedroom where I put my PJs on and promptly sat on my bed, stared into the middle distance, and lamented my lack of plans. I felt, to be perfectly blunt, like a real loser. Something about living with strangers that I’d found on SpareRoom reinforced the aloneness. Having no plans was something I was OK with, but did I want the person I was living with to know that I spend most evenings alone in my bedroom? Um, definitely not. 

Just like the scene with Aine and her flatmates, my own roomie knocked on my bedroom door and instructed me to come hang out. “No, honestly I think I just rather be alone if that’s ok,” I told him. He didn’t take no for an answer. I spent the evening dressed in a pink fluffy dressing gown hanging out with a bunch of people who very kindly did not mention my attire. 

“Everyone’s afraid to say they have it in case they catch it too.” 

Back then, I had just been dumped by a guy who told me that my bustling social life had reinforced his own loneliness. But the reality was, I was just as lonely as he was. I’d bragged about my social plans so I didn’t sound like the loner that I felt deep down inside. 

This Way Up tells the story of English-as-a-foreign language teacher Aine (Aisling Bea), an Irish woman living in London, during the aftermath of leaving an inpatient mental health facility after a “teeny little nervous breakdown.” Meanwhile, Aine’s sister Shona (Sharon Horgan) is worried about her and tracks Aine’s late-night walks in the park on Find My Friends.

“I think loneliness is at the core of it,” said Bea at a screening and Q&A at the British Film Institute (BFI) in London. “I was reading something recently about how loneliness is this disease which genuinely affects society and how we feel about each other, but also everyone’s afraid to say they have it in case they catch it too.” 

There’s definitely something in that notion of being too afraid to admit to say out loud that you’re lonely. You see a glimmer of that notion in the very first episode when Aine is recording a voicenote to a friend she’s supposed to be having dinner with. As she’s recording audio, a text comes through cancelling her plans, and Aine grapples to style out the awkwardness of being plunged into planslessness. 

“Oh yeah that is totally fine,” says Aine. “I totally get that. Um, uhh, I’ve loads of other things to do anyways, I’ll just eat the pavlova and ketamine myself.”

Image: Channel 4 Picture Publicity

Moments like the pavlova-ketamine incident are blisteringly real. When I first moved to London, my new flatmates and I held a housewarming party. I invited everyone I knew in the city. But the morning after, I totted up the number of guests of mine that had shown up: two. Thankfully, my other flatmates’ had more than made up the numbers with their own friends. I prayed that they hadn’t noticed the marked absence of a crowd of my friends. 

Darkness collides with hilarity in this show and that’s no accident. “I hate a maudlin energy around certain subjects because I don’t personally believe it helps and the more you can do with laughter the better,” Bea said. 

There isn’t the faintest hint of a maudlin energy around the topic of loneliness in This Way Up, nor is it presented as some dramatic obstacle that must be surmounted. The loneliness is a low hum in the background. If you know the tune, you’ll recognise it immediately. 

Loneliness is a low hum in the background. If you know the tune, you’ll recognise it. 

It’s in Aine’s young student Étienne’s new life with his dad, with whom he doesn’t have a connection, following the death of his mum. It’s in Shona’s relationship with her partner Vish. It’s in Shona and Aine’s mother’s life too. Loneliness is part of all the characters’ lived experiences in different ways, too. Bea told the Guardian when she started writing the characters she’d think “what’s their loneliness.” 

“Is it being the only person in an environment that does a certain job, or is it the relationship they’re not happy in? Is it being an immigrant?” said Bea. For her, that loneliness isn’t so much about being alone, but instead “comes from being your own worst enemy. In not being able to trust your head sometimes, and what it’s going to do next. That’s a wound and a gift.”

That feeling — of being your own worst enemy — is one that I can certainly identify with. I knew that night that the biggest obstacle standing between myself and not feeling lonely was me. That’s not true of everyone who experiences loneliness. 

The funny thing about seeing your loneliness portrayed accurately on-screen? It makes you feel less alone. 

This Way Up is available to stream via Channel 4 or Hulu.