'Avenue 5': HBO shares first trailer for Armando Iannucci's new sci-fi comedy

Set phasers to fun: HBO has shared the first look at Avenue 5, Armando Iannucci’s long-anticipated return to sitcoms.

The comedy mastermind behind The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge and Veep is back with a new sci-fi series set in space, and the first trailer makes it look like Wall-E set in the acerbic world of The Thick Of It.

Set aboard the eponymous Avenue 5 spacecraft, a luxury star cruiser helmed by Hugh Laurie’s Captain Ryan Clark, the comedy series looks set to throw together all levels of future society together when a crisis breaks out on board.

With its gleaming bright white decks and grimy engine room levels, the ship looks very reminiscent of the Axiom, the space vessel-arc at the heart of Pixar’s Wall-E.

Read more: First trailer for Iannucci’s David Copperfield

In the trailer Frozen II star Josh Gad is virtually unrecognisable as Herman Judd, the bleach blonde billionaire owner of the Avenue 5, The Thick Of It’s Rebecca Front appears as a concerned passenger, and Black Mirror’s Lenora Crichlow seems to be one of the ship’s engineers.

The show, which launches on HBO in January (it will air on Sky One in the UK), was in the news earlier this year when one of its sets was damaged by a fire at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden.

At least 18 fire trucks were called out to fight the fire, which took firefighters 15 hours to extinguish. No injuries were reported.

Armando Iannucci’s next film, following 2017’s excellent The Death of Stalin is The Personal History of David Copperfield, a Charles Dickens adaptation with Dev Patel in the title role.

Avenue 5 is launching on Sky One in 2020.