Aisling Bea has revealed just how difficult it was to film her TV show, This Way Up.
The second season of the witty BAFTA-winning comedy-drama which was written by the Irish actress was shot back in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The show, which also stars Sharon Horgan follows a young Irish woman named Áine (Aisling) who lives in London and is recovering from a nervous breakdown.
However, she must overcome numerous obstacles in her life in order to find happiness.
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While filming for the first season couldn’t have been more fun, Aisling has revealed on the podcast, Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake with Kathy Burke, that the pandemic sadly dampened her enjoyment of the second.
“Everywhere was so empty,” she began.
“I mean, I can barely talk about it without crying, to be honest, it was so awful.
“It was that winter lockdown of 2020. And, you know, like if you film something in the summer, we thought, ‘Oh, this won’t last forever’. And at that point, it was pre vaccines and we’d all lost faith and Christmas had been cancelled,” she added.
“And so going in to make a comedy show or anything like that and being acutely aware of the hopelessness that’s around us and trying to figure it out was sort of like having your wedding during a funeral.
“And you put so much effort into writing something and then it’s just an awful time to be making it. It felt like everything was so serious,” she explained.
Aisling also admitted that she was constantly worried that someone would fall ill and get Covid while on set, but thankfully, the cast and crew were all okay.
This Way Up is available to stream from the Channel 4 player.
