Sorry to Bother You<\/a>\u2019s Boots Riley, the more supernatural series two takes place in a miniature Juice Town. It\u2019s a world of tactile sponge-like fantasias, intricate house interiors made entirely of cardboard, and sperm-soaked sofas mistaken for modern art. Its gothic, mist-strewn streets are haunted by a mysterious mystic-slash-vape salesman (played by Kevin Eldon) who trades souls, while an emotional scene involving Jamma\u2019s dad\u2019s journey to the UK is retold using shadow puppets and an egg.<\/p>\nFirst performed at Edinburgh festival fringe as a frenetic one-man show more than a decade ago, it took a while to convince people that Juice could work on television. \u201cThere\u2019s a certain way of making British comedy, and if you\u2019re trying to make a show that\u2019s not [like something else] on TV already, that\u2019s a huge risk,\u201d Rizwan says. That risk was heightened by a TV industry contending with financial and political pressures. \u201cI think people are scared,\u201d he says. \u201cPolitically, we\u2019re in a very tumultuous time. And that\u2019s the time when art needs to be the most daring, the most honest, the most bold. But on a systemic level and on a commercial level, it\u2019s also a\u00a0time of austerity, where money tightens, so we often get this paradox: people need to make art that\u2019s more honest, but commissioners want to make stuff that\u2019s a surefire hit. It\u2019s just a hard time for people who want to challenge expectations because everything is a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Politically, we\u2019re in a time when art needs to be daring. But it\u2019s also the time of austerity \u2013 commissioners want a sure-fire hit<\/p>\n
Ultimately, he\u2019s aware that not everyone will like Juice and its glorious phantasmagoria and oddball in-jokes (Jamma and his best friend, Winnie, can often be found \u201csmoking\u201d Chipsticks, for example). \u201cIf this is not your show, cool, don\u2019t watch it,\u201d Rizwan says. \u201cBut if this is your show, the idea is that you become obsessed with it, because it\u2019s a squidgy, almost edible world that feels tangible and sensory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the familial cast list \u2013 Jamma\u2019s flighty artist brother Isaac is played by Rizwan\u2019s real-life younger brother Nabhaan, who has also starred in Netflix\u2019s Kaos and the crime drama Informer; his mother, Shahnaz, stars as frustrated matriarch Farida \u2013 Rizwan is at pains to point out that Juice\u2019s narrative arc of self-acceptance isn\u2019t completely autobiographical. \u201cI know monetising our trauma is the \u2018in\u2019 thing in our culture, but sometimes it\u2019s not always helpful,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI wanted Juice to feel truthful and personal, but I wanted it to just fly into avenues that are beyond my limited life experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
All bark \u2026 Mawaan Rizwan. Photograph: Tami Aftab<\/p>\n
There are definite connections, however, not least the fact that series two finds Jamma becoming a professional clown. When Rizwan was 23, he enrolled at a clown school just outside Paris for a month (it was all he could afford). It changed his life. \u201cWe would learn about how everyone in the circus has a skill \u2013 there\u2019s a fire-breather, there\u2019s a contortionist \u2013 but the clown has no skill whatsoever but his stupidity,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re so lovable but so tragic, and that\u2019s an interesting character trait. Jamma has so many of those qualities.\u201d Rizwan is reckoning with his frequent impulse to \u201cuse comedy as a way to get love, make people laugh\u201d by making himself \u201cthe butt of the joke. There comes a point in your life when maybe that doesn\u2019t serve you, but you still do it because it\u2019s a habit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I did every kind of dingy fringe venue you can think of: corridors, buses, toilets, on a dancefloor shouting over the Vengaboys<\/p>\n
Born in Pakistan, Rizwan, like Jamma, moved to the UK as a child with his mum (\u201ca powerhouse who never takes no for an answer\u201d). While the family initially struggled \u2013 \u201cMum had a really tricky decade of migration battles and economic struggles,\u201d is how Rizwan puts it \u2013 their home was a hub of imagination and creativity. They were often in their own bubble, a\u00a0world that had its own sayings, including one that would influence the title of Rizwan\u2019s show. \u201cMy mum used this phrase: \u2018When life gives you mangoes, make mango juice,\u2019\u201d he smiles. \u201cShe genuinely thought that was the phrase. So I thought that, too. When the Lemonade album came out, I\u00a0assumed Beyonc\u00e9 had got it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a teenager, Rizwan made comedy home videos, which he\u2019d upload to YouTube. He soon noticed that the videos that co-starred his mum, a former child actor in Pakistan, would get the most views. Eventually, Rizwan received a call from a Bollywood producer asking to speak to her. \u201cSo, weirdly, she came full circle and she got to act again.\u201d<\/p>\n
While his mum was continuing with her acting dream, Rizwan eschewed university in favour of working and going to an arts college. It was during a trip to the Edinburgh fringe that he realised alternative comedy was his calling. \u201cIt opens your eyes,\u201d he says of the festival. \u201cI did Edinburgh fringe eight years in a row, in every kind of dingy venue you can think of: corridors, buses, toilets, on a dancefloor shouting over the Vengaboys. It taught me how to play to any kind of audience.\u201d He mentions one punter who threw a Subway sandwich at him: \u201cIt was 10pm \u2013 what were they even doing having dinner that late?\u201d The early standup version of Juice would often find Rizwan reflecting on his long and winding journey to success (one of his first acting roles involved him dressed as SpongeBob, handing out flyers at a shopping centre), while comparing it to his family\u2019s, particularly his mum\u2019s, almost accidental career ascension.<\/p>\n
\u2018I took the scenic route\u2019 \u2026 Rizwan in Juice. Photograph: BBC\/Various Artists Limited<\/p>\n
As he climbed the standup ranks, when he was 24, Rizwan presented a documentary for the BBC called How Gay Is Pakistan? in which he explored queer life in his birth country. \u201cI was trying to process a lot at that point,\u201d he says. \u201cBut also a part of me was just trying to get it out of the way. The two most obvious things in terms of identity the industry kept telling me about were my queerness and my Pakistaniness. So it was a way of doing something that was super brash and bold and saying: \u2018Well, there you go\u2019. Also it was me trying to understand a part of the world and a part of my history that I felt I wasn\u2019t given access to.\u201d He pauses. \u201cAnd I\u00a0thought: Well, let\u2019s do that on taxpayers\u2019 money!\u201d He recognises it was helpful to a lot of people, but says he won\u2019t go back to documentaries: \u201cI definitely enjoy the nuances and subtleties I\u2019m able to have in scripts, over a documentary that sometimes feels heavy-handed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Juice is full of big themes such as identity, class and social mobility, but its presentation keeps things light, smuggling in topics such as abandonment via a plotline\u00a0involving a parent rental site called DaddyDays4LonelyGays.com (sadly not real). Every moment of pathos is spiked by a visual gag or a surreal tangent, which makes the whole thing more moving. \u201cJuice was the first show where I combined the clowning and the physicality and the dance and the songs and the singing and the vulnerable stories and the confessional stuff,\u201d Rizwan says. \u201cIt somehow all just worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
The use of the past tense, plus series two\u2019s neatly wrapped final episode, leads to an obvious final question: will there be a Juice series three? Rizwan sighs. He says he\u2019s keen to focus on music next, and not just comedy songs but something more serious. Besides, he\u2019s too tired to think about the future and would rather sit in the moment for a bit. \u201cIt was a fucking long journey, man,\u201d he says of his career, cocktail now drained. \u201cI took the scenic route and it\u2019s made me a better artist for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Season two of Juice starts on 18 September on BBC iPlayer and BBC Three.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve even really celebrated it to be honest, man.\u201d Sitting in a north London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-143071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}