My Review of Juice - Series 1 (2023, BBC3 Series)

 

Written by Mawann Rizwan And Emily Lloyd-Saini

Directed by Rosco 5

Farida (re Jamma): "He's such a drama queen."

With Pride Month, I'm doing some rewatches and new ones absolutely this fell into the former category. With the second series currently being filmed, I went back to the first series of this rather zany sitcom.

Former YouTube star and actor, Mawann Rizwan lead this show with a cheeky, chaotic aplomb. In the six part show, he played Jamal "Jamma" Jamshidi, a young gay man working in marketing and currently dating an older man, a therapist named Guy (Russell Tovey).

Jamma and Guy's relationship should be better than it was, considering that Guy was giving Jamma the validation he wanted, was keen for them to live together and didn't outshine him. Guy was kind of the perfect boyfriend for Jamma but the latter spent most of the series keeping Guy at arm's length, lying to him and eventually the two of them broke up with each other.

Then there was Jamma's family. He's got a mother named Farida (Shahnaz Rizwan), a former actress that was running a community centre in danger of being shut down. Jamma's relationship with his mother was intriguing enough, especially in the penultimate episode when Jamma got one hell of an insight into his mother's past.

As for his relationships with younger brother, Isaac (Nabhaan Rizwan) and Saif (Jeff Mirza), they're not as compelling as the one with Farida but they have their moments. Isaac mostly cakes as a pretentious art school dropout while Saif seemed resentful of being overshadowed by Farida.

As for the work side of things, Isaac was briefly an obstacle in Jamma's world but it's the dynamic with boss Susan (Nathalie Armin), best friend Winnie (Emily Lloyd-Saini) and rival Pat (Hugh Coles) that some fun moments. Honestly I'm not surprised that Jamma ended up losing his job as often the show didn't do a great job in him being good at it.

- The episode titles are Cake, Helluva View, The Jamma Show, A Saif Space, Lights, Cameras, Escape and Home.

- In the third episode, Farida talked about having a relationship a woman and the fifth episode proved that she was telling the truth.

- Guy's ex boyfriend Dan (Marc Elliott) popped up in the second episode. They had a dog named Custard.

- This show had a lot of fun with the trippy sequences whenever Jamma's emotions were heightened. Jamma even saw his father as a mouse at one point.

- That face cream ad campaign Jamma was in charge of really was sexist. Jamma didn't exactly help with it either.

- Chronology: 2023 London. 

The first series of Juice managed to be a mad, chaotic fun with Jamma being an amusing but frustrating protagonist. The supporting characters are largely good, particularly Farida. She's the perfect foil to Jamma and felt like the most rounded character in the show.

Rating: 7 out of 10