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Mawaan Rizwan began his career as a YouTuber; he later attended the prestigious Paris clown school, École Philippe Gaulier. In Juice, the 33-year-old’s BBC sitcom, he effortlessly unites these disparate comedy training grounds. As the fun-loving commitment-phobe Jamma, Rizwan channels the archetypal man-child vlogger. Puppyish and relatable, he wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and his attempts to conform to the expectations of adulthood are inevitably thwarted. But he is also a figure of more outre fun. With a severe bowl-cut and a penchant for retina-searing fashion, Jamma is overtly ridiculous: a master of slapstick and a magnet for chaos.
In series one, Jamma spent most of his time clowning about: hardly working at a quirky marketing company (with mini trampolines instead of desk chairs) and messing around his sensible therapist boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey). Now – having been fired from the job and broken up with Guy – he’s crashing with his friend Winnie and working as a clown in a care home. Jamma seems fine with his new gig and more interested in sleeping around than patching things up with lovelorn Guy. But after their paths cross again, he becomes determined to win him back.
If Juice wasn’t quite a romcom the first time round, it is now: Jamma and Guy’s will-they-won’t-they? forms the backbone of this second series. The pair’s differences are myriad: Guy buys £31 hand-soap and decants his cereal into containers, activities Jamma finds borderline offensive. He, meanwhile, is a walking disaster zone, unable to take on even the most basic responsibility. Ultimately, Jamma realises it is he who must change, and does so with the help of a cloaked magician (the inimitable Kevin Eldon) who wants to buy his soul. Naturally.
Juice is not overburdened with edgy jokes; its humour often relies on familiar sitcom tropes: urgent toilet visits, mistaken identity, repressed posh people. It rarely raises more than a titter and yet, strangely, that doesn’t matter; the show has more going for it than gags. The comedy may not be that distinctive, but Juice’s creativity comes at you like a tidal wave.
From the enchantingly crafted model town in the opening titles and exterior shots to the makeshift house where Jamma’s dad lives (everything from the walls to the sofa cushions is made from cardboard and parcel paper), the set design is extraordinary. This combined with Rizwan’s playfulness – stories are told via the grammar of cheesy 1980s sitcoms, shadow-puppet-inspired animation and in fully fledged horror movie mode – means Juice has an anything-can-happen unreality. Its compelling fusion of vague dread and childlike imagination resembles a dream curdling into a nightmare.
Grounding these surreal flourishes is a cast who radiate charm. Tovey brings an amiability to everything he does; his Guy is strait-laced but never a bore, and he and Jamma have palpable chemistry. Actor and comedian Emily Lloyd-Saini – who used to host a BBC Asian Network radio show with Rizwan – is giddy yet down-to-earth as Winnie, while the creator enlists his real-life sibling Nabhaan (an in-demand actor in his own right) to play Isaac, Jamma’s cool, inscrutable younger brother. Their mother Shahnaz – who was cast in one of India’s biggest TV shows as a result of her scene-stealing turns in her son’s YouTube sketches – is a little less low-key as matriarch Farida. Hunting for her estranged husband, Saif (comedian Jeff Mirza, steeped in sad bear energy) to get him to sign divorce papers so she can attend to her “bodily needs in a halal way”, she is a whirlwind of single-minded fury and imperious glam.
Instead of chasing laughs, Juice 2.0 becomes increasingly intent on clawing at psychological insight. Guy is writing a book about intimacy, and the therapy theme drives deep into the fabric of the show. Thanks to their father’s behaviour, Jamma and Isaac have daddy issues, while Guy must reckon with his tendency to adopt the father figure role in relationships.
The dominant psychodrama, however, involves Jamma’s attempt to suffocate his inner clown; the part of him that conflates love and attention and craves them at any cost – a reckoning that leads to enlightenment. The broader moral seems a bit muddled – that we should embrace each other’s true selves, but also change for each other? Yet the ending (which feels very final; you wouldn’t bet on a third series) is irresistibly heartwarming.
Rizwan has described Juice as possessing the “chaos of a cheese-induced dream but the emotional truth of a good therapy session”. It may not be side-splitting, but this lovable, thought-provoking and visually arresting series lives up to its promises.
