Harry Enfield and newsreader Jon Snow are to star in a new satirical sitcom about capital punishment, Chortle can reveal.

Capital – which will be released as a podcast – is a semi-improvised show dealing with what happens after a divisive referendum in which  Britain votes to bring back capital punishment by a narrow majority.

It is set among the civil servants having to enact the new law.  Enfield guest stars as the Minister for Capital Punishment, and Snow will play himself, alongside a cast of up-and-coming comics.

The core team, pictured above, are Adam Drake, of Fringe favourites Goose; Charlotte Ritchie of Fresh Meat and Call The Midwife, stand-up and writer Liam Williams and Matilda Wnek of sketch duo Beard.

It was conceived by Freddy Syborn, who co-wrote Bad Education with Jack Whitehall, with  ‘Brexit as its parallel, but the current murky pessimism of politics as its context’.

The episodes were written as a series of plot points, with the cast then improvising each episode using the so-called ‘beat-sheet’ as a jumping-off point. The subsequent recordings were edited into three episodes.

Drake said:  ‘Recording Capital with such a dream team was an absolute joy. I almost ended up sympathising with the Civil Servants in the Department for Brexit, whose real-life gaffes and slip-ups can’t be edited out.’

And Ritchie added: ’What a brilliant and funny team to work with on such horrible subject matter. Amazing how the most awful tasks simply became admin.’

Other comic actors making an appearance include Flora Anderson, Celeste Dring, David Elms Rosa Robson and Cam Spence. 

Ben Rowse, Drake’s Goose collaborator, also helped devised the show. He said: ‘The whole process was so effortless, which is the one thing that stopped this satire of the civil service being entirely accurate’.

The first episode of Capital will be available from the usual podcast providers on Monday, with the subsequent episodes over the following two Mondays.