Liam Mullone, British comedy's only contrarian libertarian antiquarian, will record his own BBC Radio 4 show tackling the universal theme that sums up all human endeavour... disappointment.

Liam Mullone's Disappointing World is a comedy lecture dedicated to history's losers: hopeless causes, rubbish empires, pointless wars and muddle-headed adventures. Liam will celebrate heroic failures, pyrrhic victories and enormously bad ideas - with some wry comparisons to today's world.

The pilot episode will look at disappointing technology from history to the present day including the underperforming Swedish warship that sank upon launch, the dispiriting super-plane that flew for one mile and the wholly unsatisfactory space station where the astronauts went on strike.

Joining Liam are guest performers Alexis Dubus (and his French alter-ego Marcel Lucont) and Eri Jackson (Life's Too Short).