“No good comes of laughing,” the cruel nuns who taught a young Dave Allen tell him in BBC2's upcoming biopic Dave Allen at Peace.

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But how wrong they were.

The little boy from Dublin went on to be one of his country’s best loved comics – and many of his jokes saw him get his own back on institutional religion.

Game of Thrones star Aidan Gillen takes on the role of the snappily dressed comic who died aged 68 in 2005. Check out the first look images below.

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Tommy Tiernan plays Allen's kindly, encouraging father, with fellow Game of Thrones actor Conleth Hill as his brother John, a comedian with a drink problem and a sadder story.

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Also popping up is Cold Feet’s Robert Bathurst as BBC director-general Charles Curran - a fellow Roman Catholic who understood Allen’s frustrations with Rome. Curran tells him at one point: “The BBC will always defend you Dave as long as you keep them laughing.”

He certainly did that.

(Radio Times Archive, JG)
Dave Allen on the front cover of Radio Times in 1975 (Radio Times Archive)
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Dave Allen At Peace will air on BBC2 this Spring

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