Avenue 5: Hugh Laurie discovers how space tourism can go badly wrong

Space tourism has taken off in HBOs comedy Avenue 5, but the ship is off course, just like the jokes. Can the captain, Hugh Laurie, save the day?

By Chelsea Whyte

IMAGINE being stuck at sea on a ship full of entitled jerks who are more worried about their dinner order being wrong than the fact that the boat is sinking.

That is the gist of HBO’s Avenue 5, a new farce from Armando Iannucci, the creator of The Thick Of It and Veep. The show has a fairly solid premise: what if space tourism takes off, but the company running …