Juice is a sitcom about Jamal 'Jamma' Jamshidi, who has just moved into his boyfriend Guy's house and is struggling to balance his commitments to family, friends, work and love.

First broadcast in 2023 on BBC Three¹, Juice was written by Mawaan Rizwan and is inspired by events from his own life as a gay Pakistani-British man in the 21st Century². Jamma works for an advertising agency, and has to compete against his colleagues to get the best projects to work on. He persuades his brother Isaac to help, but then Isaac is given a job there and competes against him, too. While Jamma's relationship with psychotherapist Guy is getting stronger, his parents are arguing and threatening to divorce. Plus the Megacentre³ that his mother owns comes under threat.

Jamma's mother Farida is played by Mawaan's own mother Shahnaz and Jamma's brother is played by Mawaan's brother Nabhaan. Guy is played by Russell Tovey, an English gay man who is known for roles such as Him⁴ in Him and Her and the werewolf George Sands in Being Human.

Before Juice, Mawaan had performed a show of the same name at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018. He appeared as a contestant on Taskmaster in 2020. His comedy career began through videos on YouTube - his mother joined in with some of the sketches and attracted attention in her own right. Shahnaz had acted in films as a child, but her family did not consider it a suitable career for her as an adult, so she married and became a tutor instead. The YouTube videos led to her appearing in Yeh Hai Mohabbatein (This Is Love), a television series in India, between 2013 and 2018. Nabhaan's first acting role was in 2018, as the Informer in a television drama series of the same name.

Juicy

The comedy in Juice ranges from physical to surreal. For example, when Jamma is handcuffed to a radiator and can't find the handcuff key, he drags the radiator home with him. At Guy's house, Jamma's numerous boxes of belongings vibrate as the items are eager to escape. Jamma's imagination often runs away with him, so reality is warped accordingly - he is absorbed into a secret world inside his bed one morning, another day in a shop the walls close in around him, and sometimes his clothes change shape. In the style of Bollywood, music often begins unexpectedly and singing and dancing take place. One particularly funny moment pays homage to a classic Morecambe and Wise sketch - Jamma and Guy dance around the kitchen making breakfast in time to music.

Alongside the comedy, there are many poignant moments. Jamma fears his parents will disapprove of his relationship with Guy, so makes a scene in a restaurant when they all go out for a meal together. However, he then learns that his mother had been in love with a woman and she admires his courage in coming out as gay. Jamma struggles with his feelings for Guy, falling in love but fearing that admitting it will ruin their relationship. In the final episode of the series, when they are threatened with eviction from the Megacentre, Jamma and his family rally round together in the attempt to save their community.