''Asylum'' is a British comedy series which was shown on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

from 9 to 23 February 2015. The satirical comedy series revolves around a

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

and an internet pirate who find themselves trapped together under the threat of extradition in the London

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a Sovereign state, state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase ...

of a fictional Latin American country. The show was inspired by

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of News leak, leaks from Chels ...

’s two-year stay in the Ecuadorian embassy and the controversial entrepreneur

Kim Dotcom Kim Dotcom (né Schmitz; born 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a Finnish-German Internet entrepreneur and political activist who lives in Glenorchy, New Zealand. He rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s as a ha ...

. The show was initially conceived by fonejacker star, Kayvan Novak and Tom Thostrup, before being written by Thom Phipps and Peter Bowden.

Reception

Reviews of the show called it "boring" and said it "just wasn't funny enough." One of the writers of the series Thom Phipps once called for the police to publicly shoot the Wikileaks founder in the head. On the day Julian Assange was given political asylum, by the government of Ecuador, Phipps tweeted: "If the met olicewant to regain my trust they should drag Assange out the embassy + shoot him in the back of th head in the middle of traf square." Emmy Butlin lodged a complaint with the BBC over its decision to employ Phipps on the basis that he "advocated for the public extrajudicial assassination" of the Wikileaks founder. The BBC's response was that: "Unfortunately Mr Philip's icis not a BBC member of staff and is not representing the BBC. Therefore we will not be commenting on Twitter posts made by third parties." The series has yet to be released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

Cast and crew

Written by Thom Phipps and Peter Bowden ;Principal cast and characters *

Ben Miller Bennet Evan Miller (born 24 February 1966) is an English comedian, actor and author. He rose to fame as a member of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller, with Alexander Armstrong. He is known for roles as Angus Jeremy Bough in the '' Johnny Eng ...

as Dan Hern * Kayvan Novak as Rafael *

Niky Wardley Nichola Petra "Niky" Wardley (born 11 August 1973) is an English stage and screen actress. Her most notable role is schoolgirl Lauren Cooper's sidekick in the BBC's Emmy and BAFTA-nominated sketch series '' The Catherine Tate Show'' (2004–20 ...

as Lorna * Yasmine Akram as Rosa *

Dustin Demri-Burns Dustin Demri-Burns (born 11 July 1978) is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is best known for his work in '' Cardinal Burns'' (2012–2014) and '' Slow Horses'' (2022). He appeared in films as the roles of Danny Sinclair in '' Alan Partr ...

as Ludo Backslash *

John Guerrasio John Guerrasio (born January 1, 1950 in New York City, New York) is an American stage, film and TV actor, based in the United Kingdom. He is known for having a broad New York accent The phonology, sound system of New York City English is p ...

as Mo *

Darrell D'Silva Darrell Fitzgerald D'Silva is a British actor, best known for his role as Hendrik Davie in ITV series ''Van der Valk (2020 TV series), Van der Valk'' and notable for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Early life and education Darrel ...

as Castillo *

David Cross David Cross (born April 4, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and director. Cross is best known for his stand-up performances, the HBO sketch comedy series '' Mr. Show with Bob and David'' (1995–1998), his role as Ian Hawk ...

as Juan Pablo * Ayo Mary Laurent as Mary

Episodes

References

External links

* * 2010s British satirical television series 2010s British television miniseries 2015 British television series debuts 2015 British television series endings BBC television comedy British English-language television shows Cultural depictions of Julian Assange Kim Dotcom Television shows set in London Television series by All3Media {{BBC-comedy-tv-prog-stub