Review: Avenue 5

Armando Ianucci has been on something of a roll lately. In the past decade alone he wrapped up The Thick Of It with one of the most memorable endings to any British television show in recent history, took his biting satire to the States with Veep, gave us a darkly comic look at Soviet-era Russia in The Death of Stalin, and turned his hand to more family-friendly fare with this year’s The Personal History of David Copperfield. Everything Ianucci’s been a part of lately has knocked it out of the park, and his most recent is, mostly, no different; Avenue 5, a space-set comedy series following the escapades of a space-cruise gone awry, might not live up to his usual standard, but that doesn’t stop it being a harmless, perfectly enjoyable distraction from the horrors of the outside world.

Everything Ianucci’s been a part of lately has knocked it out of the park

The success of Veep has clearly allowed Ianucci to go big; Avenue 5 is a co-production between HBO and Sky Atlantic, and the increased budgets he has been given have allowed for more star power and lavish sets befitting the status of a space-cruise. Hugh Laurie takes the lead as captain of the Avenue 5 Ryan Clark, but he’s hiding a secret: he isn’t actually a captain, and cannot actually fly the ship. It is a classic fish-out-of-water device for Ianucci to use, reminiscent in places of the excellent ‘climb the mountain of conflict’ scene from In the Loop, and Laurie is clearly having a ball. Few other working actors could carry off both Ryan’s wild flapping at being so out of his depth and his pretending to be in total control as he does, and he carries off each side of the character with equal panache.

Co-starring are Josh Gad, Rebecca Front, Suzy Nakamura, Lenora Crichlow and Zach Woods, and all are excellent. Each has a well-defined character and puts in a great shift, as they all get their moment to shine throughout the series. Gad, in particular, stands out as an enjoyably simplistic parody of the self-absorbed billionaire, lending Judd (the owner of the company behind Avenue 5) a feeling of being at once realistic and hyper-real in a way that only Josh Gad could.

Gad, in particular, stands out as an enjoyably simplistic parody of the self-absorbed billionaire

Front channels some serious Nicola Murray energy into Karen, a passenger who spectacularly lives up to everything her name implies, while Nakamura gets some fantastic moments as Judd’s PA Iris, who is so over dealing with such a man-child. Crichlow’s Billie teams up with Ryan to be one of the only truly likeable characters in the show; the engineer is the only one of the main cast who’s actually capable of doing their job, and great delight is had in the various scenes in which she has to teach Ryan how to do his. Woods, in a move true to his previous role in In the Loop, is pretty much just a punching bag for the other characters, but his various ramblings for seemingly no reason do make Matt an enjoyable presence – if a little (deliberately) annoying.

Avenue 5 is also, thankfully, very funny. As with much of Ianucci’s previous work, this is mostly down to the sheer incompetence of his main characters; as mentioned, only Billie is in any way good at their job – the rest are either pretending or are simply useless, leading to some great moments of conflict when none of them know what is going on, yet fight over it anyway. His swearing is also on top form, as per usual; though lacking the incredibly visual metaphors of Malcom Tucker, or the violent ferocity of Georgy Zhukov, Ianucci’s dialogue is creative enough to find comedy in even the smallest swears (one that sticks in the mind is the delightfully random exclamation of ‘shitting biscuits!’).

There isn’t really anything particularly negative to say about Avenue 5 – but it also isn’t a stellar series

Now, oddly enough, there isn’t really anything particularly negative to say about Avenue 5 – but it also isn’t a stellar series. It walks that odd middle ground where there is nothing at all wrong with it, but it never quite manages to leave you with anything more than ‘well, that was fun.’ I’ve tried to pinpoint why this is, and I cannot quite figure it out: perhaps it is the occasionally muddled tone, which sometimes struggles to balance the darkness of certain narrative points with the overall jaunty feeling of the show; maybe it is the editing, which seems to cut to the credits at the most interesting point of the episode; perchance it is the lack of a figure like Malcolm Tucker or Georgy Zhukov to give it some bite; or possibly it is the oft-jumbled satire, which ranges from marked points about billionaires and global warming to bizarre jokes about a true-crime podcast centred on Greta Gerwig.

None of these are particularly negative things, per se, and Avenue 5 is still a perfectly enjoyable series without them, but we do get the feeling that there is something missing here that is so usually present in Ianucci’s other fare. Nevertheless, the whole box set is there to stream on Sky Atlantic, and there are definitely worse ways to spend an afternoon; though not quite reaching the stellar comedic heights of Ianucci’s previous works, Avenue 5 still serves as an enjoyably pleasant watch that, if nothing else, will definitely keep you distracted for a few hours.