E4’s backpacking comedy Foreign Bodies has signed up Janeane Garofalo as a regular guest star.

The comedian, whose credits include The Larry Sanders Show and Ideal, will play Sam, a jaded traveller who has spent 20 years in exotic places.

Her permanently unimpressed cynicism is described as a ‘counterpoint to the excitable, wide-eyed young travellers she meets, and she’s quick to dispel them of their romantic and idiotic assumptions about the world’.

Also in the cast is the previously announced Tim Key, who plays a 38-year-old in denial about his marriage and his business, who joins a much younger group of gap-year travellers.

The eight-part series was created by comedian Tom Basden, who wrote it with Rev’s James Wood, Shameless writers  Amy Roberts and Loren McLaughlin, Charlie Covell (who played Trish in three episodes of Peep Show), Key and Jonny Sweet.

It is set in  China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and is due to air on E4 early next year.

The international cast includes newcomer Anders Hayward as delusional romantic Dylan; Ade Oyefeso as a friendly, easy-going Brit; Brittney Wilson as a blunt American student who is book-smart but emotionally immature; and Alice Lee as a highly-strung worrier.

Made by UK production company Eleven and Entertainment On, the series will also air on America’s TNT channel later next year.