If you think that endless analysis, swingometers and flashy graphics of Churchill and Thatcher superimposed on to Westminster are so 2010, this night of sideways election coverage might be for you. Jeremy Paxman and David Mitchell host, with guests including Kayvan Novak and Richard Osman joining the pair, plus themed editions of The Last Leg and Gogglebox during the evening. Lest the election itself be forgotten, Gary Gibbon and Cathy Newman will relay the results throughout the night.

From BBC Four comes a brand new satirical comedy: Asylum. It was created by Kayvan Novak - the man behind E4's FoneJacker - and stars Ben Miller as Daniel Hern, a whistleblower hated by America and offered solace by a fictional 'El Rican' embassy.

The show appears to be promising, perhaps similar in its politically satirical nature to The Thick of It. However, where Asylum falls short is in its comedic value. Hern's sidekick Ludo, his ridiculously inept lawyer and a One Direction obsessed journalist, should have elicited a laugh or a smile from me in theory, but something in the comedy's delivery just missed the mark. Whilst not awful, I would not watch it again in a hurry. Although, being only 30 minutes long, maybe Asylum will get better as the series progresses and, for lovers of satires, it could be well be worth a watch.

Asylum, despite Ben Miller, isn't (yet) funny. The premise is fine, the Julian Assange story played for laughs (not that the real-life tale involves any less bathos, hubris and other words the Greeks did best). Miller plays it for high-minded pompous, as a GCHQ whistleblower holed up for 14 months in the London embassy of "El Rico", a banana republic which purely wants to stick a finger up to America but finds Dan Hern (Miller) an increasingly ungrateful and unwelcome guest, simply bored and boring and having lost his media cachet. So El Rico - look at the funny banana republic, welcoming to an embassy ball the funny North Koreans! - also brings to shelter one Ludo Backslash, a mittel-European wanted by urgent Hollywood dollars for having streamed for fun every major film for years.

Much of the conception is by Kayvan Novak, who also appears as the "herpes in a suit" ambassador's plotting son, and Dustin Demri-Burns is the amiable Backslash, and these two alone, never mind Miller, should have guaranteed laughs. But it was written by none of them, and that shows: it has too few quirks, a too-obvious incompetent lawyer, one plot device (a misheard word) so old it's got rust on its moss, and too many stereotypes which were old in the 70s. Come out of the 70s! With your hands UP.

New sitcom from Kayvan Novak, based on the peculiar plight of Julian Assange. Ben Miller plays Dan Hern, a Snowden-like whistleblower holed up in a fictional central American embassy in London after leaking CIA documents. When the media begin to tire of his plight, the embassy head (Novak) offers sanctuary to another fugitive: manchild hacker Ludo (Dustin Demri-Burns). The odd-couple combo takes precedence over anything truly satirical, though Miller and Demri-Burns bounce off each other nicely.

Radio Times review

Co-created by Fonejacker's Kayvan Novak, this new comedy takes its lead from the now slightly-less-than-topical story of Julian Assange taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy - but then that's sort of the point.

A year after he was granted asylum in the fictional El Rican embassy, whistleblower Dan Hern (Ben Miller) is largely forgotten by the world and despised by the embassy staff. He finds his world getting a little smaller with the arrival of another more fashionable fugitive - immature hacker Ludo Backslash (played by Cardinal Burns' Dustin Demri-Burns with a sort of childish glee, and clearly based on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom).

Asylum is a fairly gentle ride without any big belly laughs, but the claustrophobic surroundings of the embassy make a great breeding ground for comic situations, and Miller is in his element as the self-important Dan, whose search for justice is only superseded by his need for access to dodgy websites.

Kayvan Novak interview

Kayvan Novak has spoken out in support of original comedy and drama on BBC Four.

Kayvan Novak to host phone-in show as Terry Tibbs

Comedian Kayvan Novak is to take over the microphone on talkSPORT as his wheeler-dealer alter-ego, Terry Tibbs. On Friday 6 February from 10pm, no-nonsense car salesman Terry will host a sporting phone-in, Talk to Me, and give his unique take on the biggest sport stories of the day.