Juice (BBC Three/iPlayer), a surreal comedy from 31-year-old actor and stand-up Mawaan Rizwan, throws every thing on the wall to see what sticks. It is the sort of present that, as a way to make the purpose, would actually have folks throwing issues at partitions to check which is the stickiest.
You must salute the endeavour. Rizwan is the madcap twister behind the collection (he writes and stars), and from his mushroom haircut to his extremely TikTok-able dance routines it’s his present all through. Jamma (Rizwan) is a chaotic-yet-loveable show-off who works at a pseudy advertising company flogging face cream. He’s additionally boyfriend to therapist Guy (Russell Tovey, who underplays it fantastically, letting Rizwan steal his personal present), brother to deadpan Isaac (Rizwan’s real-life brother Nabhaan, finest identified from the a lot underrated Informer) and son to folks Farida and Saif (his real-life mom Shahnaz and comedy actor Jeff Mirza, each wonderful all through).
Juice careers through genres and set-pieces with have-a-go glee, by no means fairly reaching laugh-out-loud humorous however remaining novel and peculiar all through. There is a way of quick skits with none actual connection being bundled collectively within the guise of a sitcom.
In place of narrative, Juice prefers imagery and symbolism. So Jamma’s must “unpack” his points is represented by a collection of cardboard containers clogging up his flat that shake about, like they’re about to blow up. In amongst these sorts of visible experiments, it takes Rizwan some time to search out out what story he’s actually telling, apart from that of an eccentric with a wild creativeness on a demolition derby through a staid world.
