LOSTS IN SPACE

Hugh Laurie’s inchargewhena luxury holiday space cruiser is blown off course in dark new sci-fi comedy Avenue 5

An eight-week trip through space in a luxury, celescruiser tial sounds like the ultimate getaway-from-it-all vacation. But in Sky One’s new black comedy Avenue 5 – created by The Thick Of It’s Armando Iannucci and with an A-list cast, including Hugh Laurie and Frozen’s Josh Gad – something goes tragically wrong.

While approaching Saturn, a shift in gravity causes chaos and throws the spacecraft, called Avenue 5, off course. It also kills some passengers and engineer Joe, the only person who really knows how the ship works.

‘The change of trajectory dramatically increases the time it is going to take to get back to Earth,’ explains Hugh Laurie, who plays Avenue 5’s captain Ryan Clark. ‘And it only has enough food to last for a few weeks.’

It falls to Clark to keep the 5,000 passengers calm with witty oneliners and pithy asides, while he frantically tries to find a solution – but that could prove tricky. ‘He’s basically a fraudster – the driver of a craft that drives itself,’ says Hugh. ‘But he has no choice. He has to step up and be a proper captain.’

Jokes, including debates about how to share the last portion of tiramisu, are eventually replaced by more serious discussions on water preservation and the allocation of vital foodstuffs.

The ship’s billionaire owner,

Herman Judd (Josh Gad), is on board for this maiden voyage but tries to distance himself from the crisis and seeks protection from his second in command, Iris.

Karen Kelly (Poldark’s Rebecca Front) becomes a spokesperson for the passengers and runs rings round Matt Spencer, head of customer relations on Avenue 5, while the ship’s second engineer,

Billie Mcevoy (Lenora Crichlow), is weighed down by responsibility – but might she emerge a hero?

Meanwhile, there’s danger from space debris that builds up around the ship and sucks the craft into its own gravity field.

Back on Earth, Rav Mulcair (Gold Digger’s Nikki AmukaBird), head of Judd Mission Control, can only look on in horror at

the unfolding events. ‘There’s a point at which Rav and her team have a meeting to discuss a potential rescue mission for Avenue 5,’ explains Nikki. ‘When Rav is shown what it will cost, she can hardly believe her eyes and isn’t sure if it’s the figure or the phone number they have to ring to talk to NASA.’

Armando Iannucci says the show is awry look at the blame game that occurs when something goes wrong in a big organisation, while Hugh Laurie explains, ‘It’s an examination of how quickly social order can break down and how rapidly people can go more than a little crazy. Which – trust me – in Avenue 5, they do.’ Tim Oglethorpe Avenue 5 starts on Wednesday at 10pm on Sky One.