NEXT IN THE SERIES

You fell in love with that incredible new TV show. And then it ended! Don’t despair — Boyd Hilton recommends the sibling shows to watch next

IF YOU LOVED... THIS WAY UP GAMEFACE (ALL 4)

This Way Up creator Aisling Bea’s real-life best friend Roisin Conaty created and starred in her own E4/channel 4 comedy which, across two beautifully judged series, deals with similar issues of loneliness and depression, but with a disarmingly light touch. Conaty plays Marcella, an actor whose work mainly consists of wearing absurd costumes to entertain at children’s parties, and who always seems to make the worst life decisions imaginable. Her performance grounds a show never far away from a spectacularly funny set-piece, excruciating social awkwardness, or heartfelt romance.

DEAD BOSS (AMAZON PRIME VIDEO/ ITUNES)

Seven years before they collaborated on This Way Up, Aisling Bea and Sharon Horgan first met on this BBC3 comedy. Co-created by Horgan and Holly Walsh, the oneseries wonder is set in a women’s prison where Horgan’s character Helen is starting a 12-year sentence, having been wrongly convicted for the murder of her boss. It’s part prison-drama pastiche, part spoof mystery with a formidable cast including Jennifer Saunders and Miranda Richardson. But Bea steals the show as Helen’s deeply selfish sister who couldn’t be happier that her sibling is in jail.

THE OTHER ONE (BBC IPLAYER)

The fraught yet essentially loving relationship between sisters is at the heart of This Way Up and similarly, an intense sisterly situation is explored in BBC Two comedy The Other One. The series stars Ellie White (Stath Lets Flats) and Lauren Socha (Misfits) as sisters who have no idea of each other’s existence until their father’s sudden death. The unexpected delight of the show is that the siblings, whose personalities could not be more different, are both really into the idea of having a long-lost half-sister.

THE FALL (NETFLIX)

As well as being a first-rate stand-up, a comedy-panel-show regular and creating her own sitcom, Aisling Bea is also an accomplished ‘straight’ actor, appearing in Mike Bartlett’s ITV drama The Town and Luther creator Neil Cross’ apocalyptic thriller Hard Sun, among others. But perhaps her most surprising role is when she pops up in the third series of The Fall as a creepy nurse looking after Jamie Dornan’s incapacitated psychopath Paul Spector. Is she up to something? Maybe. Maybe not. Bea keeps us guessing.