Avenue 5 review – Armando Iannucci's cosmic caper gets utterly lost in space

Apparently, Hugh Laurie is not only British but he can do comedy, too! This discovery about an actor the majority of American viewers know only as caustic doctor Gregory House in House is currently falling on US audiences like manna from heaven, courtesy of his starring role in Armando Iannucci’s new space-dystopian sitcom Avenue 5 (HBO/Sky One). It’s nice to think of them heading to YouTube to find out more and getting to see A Bit of Fry and Laurie (“You know what makes me really mad? It’s this belief that I’m John the Baptist”) before Trump blows the place to hell. Going out with a smile – it’s the best any of us can hope for.

Laurie and the rest of the Avenue 5 cast will certainly help you do that. It’s something of an (inter)stellar lineup. Laurie plays Ryan Clark, captain of space cruise ship Avenue 5 and a man with a much-valued talent for soothing even the most fractious passenger on an eight-week jaunt around the solar system. This is particularly useful as his colleague, Matt Spencer (Zach Woods, of the US version of The Office and Silicon Valley), has no such talent, despite being the head of passenger communications. “I’m here to make sure your body wash gets replenished,” he explains to warring couple Mia (Jessica St Clair) and Doug (Kyle Bornheimer), who have taken the holiday to try to save their relationship, “not to rectify the catastrophe of human existence.” Spencer has many of the best lines, often as a hologram shilling the ship’s luxury services, including all-you-can-eat buffets: “If you’re not completely satisfied – you’re wrong.” Also in the mix, and a further cross for Spencer to bear, is domineering Karen Kelly (Iannucci’s rep-company stalwart Rebecca Front), who is married to the beleaguered Frank (fellow Office-mate of Woods, Andy Buckley) and has many ongoing complaints about their malfunctioning cabin. Forty years in the future we may be, but Karen’s gonna Karen.

The ship is owned by billionaire manbaby Herman Judd (an anomalously repellent performance from Josh Gad – yes, even accounting for the fact that billionaire manbabies are not meant to be particularly likable) and all hell breaks loose when a gravity flip throws them off course, kills the ship’s engineer (“If it’s any consolation, he had very few loved ones”) and transforms their eight-week interplanetary hop into an epic three-year voyage. Experts at Judd’s earthbound HQ are at a loss, and head of mission control, Rav (Nikki Amuka-Bird, hitting it out of the park), is going quietly insane under the pressure.

And then – well, then nothing much. Passengers and crew shuffle round, delivering acutely focused one-liners that – if they frequently lack the zing of vintage Veep-style Iannucci – still reward the extra half-second of attention they require to parse. When Judd’s right-hand woman, Iris (a brutally magnificent Suzy Nakamura), tells Captain Clark that the passengers exercising forms “the largest ever yoga class in space”, he replies: “Who’d we beat?” So perish all pride in human non-endeavours. See also a passenger’s awed sighting, at Judd’s exhibition of historical artefacts, of “Gone Girl on an original Kindle!”

But there is – despite two not unexpected reveals in the opening three episodes – a pervasive sense of stasis about the whole affair, best symbolised by an incredibly laboured running gag about the 26-second time-lag between the ship and Earth that seems, in every instance, to play out in real time.

Like the post-flip ship itself, Avenue 5 doesn’t seem to know quite where it is going or how long it might take to get there. Commentary on the uselessness of most tech, corporations’ concerns about the bottom line even with 500 trapped people’s lives at stake and the effortless climb to power by the Karens of this world in the wake of crises are all points taken, but Avenue 5 is taking its time to find a theme and story to coalesce round them. By the end of the four episodes available for review, the plot had been back and forth along a few grooves that were already beginning to feel well-worn. The rest remained a disparate collection of delights and longueurs, despite the formidable talent before and behind the cameras. Maybe things will improve in the second half of the eight-part run – and if not, well, God knows Iannucci is entitled to a slight misstep now and again. In the meantime, there is Veep, The Thick of It and all of Alan Partridge to rewatch, as well as all the bits of Fry and Laurie the internet has to offer.