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

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air 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 A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

and an internet pirate 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 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 usually deno ...

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. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army inte ...

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

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

. The show was initially conceived by

fonejacker ''Fonejacker'' is a British comedy programme broadcast on E4 featuring a series of prank calls involving a number of different characters performed by British Iranian television actor Kayvan Novak. It first appeared in May 2006 and became a fu ...

star, Kayvan Novak and Tom Thostrup, before being written by Thom Phipps and Peter Bowden.

Controversy

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.' A complaint was lodged 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 kind ...

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 actor, comedian, and author. He rose to fame as one half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller. Miller is also known for playing the lead role of DI Richard Poole in the first two serie ...

as Dan Hern *

Kayvan Novak Kayvan Novak ( fa, کیوان نواک; born 23 November 1977) is a British actor and comedian.Kadivar, DariuSyriana breaks Iranian stereotypes, ''Persian Mirror''. Retrieved 3 August 2007. He co-created and starred in the comedy series ''Fone ...

as Rafael * Niky Wardley as Lorna *

Yasmine Akram Yasmine Akram (born 11 March 1981) is an Irish-Pakistani actress, writer and comedian. She has written comedy sketches for the BBC and Channel 4, and played Janine Hawkins in the third series of '' Sherlock''. Early life and education Akram was ...

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''. He appeared in films as the roles of Danny Sinclair in the 2013 film '' Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa'' (2013), Vik ...

as Ludo Backslash *

John Guerrasio John Guerrasio is an American, New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York ma ...

as Mo *

Darrell D'Silva Darrell Fitzgerald D'Silva (born 5 January 1964) is a British film and theatre actor, notable for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Early life and education D'Silva was born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. He is of Italian, Portugue ...

as Castillo *

David Cross David Cross (born April 4, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, director, and writer known for his stand-up performances, the HBO sketch comedy series ''Mr. Show'' (1995–1998), and his role as Tobias Fünke in the Fox/Netflix sitcom ...

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 English-language television shows Julian Assange Kim Dotcom Television shows set in London {{BBC-tv-prog-stub