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Himesh Patel has been cast opposite Hugh Laurie in Armando Iannucci’s HBO space comedy Avenue 5.

Created by Iannucci, Avenue 5 is a space tourism comedy set forty years in the future when the solar system is everyone’s oyster. With Hugh Laurie as the Captain, nothing can go wrong.

Patel will play Jordan Hatwal, a young stand-up who is just starting out. When he’s offered an eight-week-long residency on Judd Galaxy’s inaugural luxury cruise around Saturn he jumps at the chance to declare himself, ‘The Funniest Man in the Universe’. Unfortunately for him, comedy clubs in space famously have no atmosphere. And he doesn’t quite have enough material to last the journey. And his fragile self-confidence means it might not be long before he’s heckling himself. He’s had a few bad gigs in his time, but nothing that could possibly prepare him for this.

In addition to Laurie, Patel joins previously cast Josh Gad, Zach Woods, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rebecca Front, Lenora Crichlow, Suzy Nakamura and Ethan Phillips.

Iannucci executive produces with Kevin Loader, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche and Will Smith.

Patel stars in Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle’s highly anticipated rock-n-roll comedy Yesterday, written by Love Actually’s Richard Curtis, produced by Working Title and set to be released by Universal Pictures June 28. This fall, he’ll be seen alongside Felcity Jones and Eddie Redmayne in Tom Harper’s film The Aeronauts. Himesh has also finished filming on a six-part BBC2/Working Title TV adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s Man-Booker prize winning novel, The Luminaries, and can currently be seen in Morwenna Banks and Jo Brand’s Channel 4 sitcom Damned. Patel is repped by WME in the U.S. and 42 Management in the UK.