Little Miss Jocelyn

Little Miss Jocelyn is one of the most brilliant of comedy shows. Its depth is often unappreciated. Take these characters: Liz: a biting satire of white man's exoticisation of black women. Fiona: a woman who is so conditioned by prevalent (but generally unspoken) racist opinions that she espouses them wholeheartedly to the point of denying her own 'black' identity, save finally exploding at the end of the sketch by 'fulfilling' the most racist and outrageous of anti-black clichés. Mrs Omwukupopo: another incisive satire playing up to white people's prejudices towards so-called 'black sexuality'. Throughout Jocelyn Lee Esien plays on either reversing white prejudices or on reproducing them for satiric effect highlighting the racist views that British society is full of and is not aware of subscribing to, or cannot quite admit to in public (except perhaps in the dark corners of a pub), thanks to its often hypocritical adherence to 'political correctness'. I imagine many white people will find the show distasteful, but that is the whole purpose of it, to throw back in their faces the types of prejudices that their society itself often holds against Africans. Of course that is just one level. There is another. Little Miss Jocelyn is a comedy about the African community in the UK laughing about itself and its idiosyncrasies. Many of her sketches are part of the classic repertoire of 'country (call-a-spade-a-spade) bumpkin goes to the metropolis of political correctness' and can be found in many other comedies about/by migrants (not only African) living in the so-called 'advanced' economies.

I am not surprised but saddened by the axing of the program.

When I watched the show for the first time I thought 'oh another Little Britain clone' but I was pleasantly surprised by the following episodes. As with all new programme's i was too quick to judge and have found myself looking forward to future episodes. However there are some sketches and characters I still don't laugh at. The bus driving character Sheson is too similar to the traffic warden character of Jiffy to me to be considered an individually comical character. Despite this I still enjoy watching the show but as a 3 non blonds fan I'm bound to be a little biased. My favourite characters in Little Miss Jocelyn are Mrs Omwukuopopo (Nigerian Polygamist), Jiffy (Parking Attendant) and Fiona (A woman who doesn't want her colleagues to learn she's black) and these characters in my opinion really make the show. A criticism i must make though is that it seems like a female version of Little Britain and The Fast Show but I don't think it was intentional on Jocelyn's behalf.

This show made me laugh at points but a lot of it just felt forced and contrived. One of the great things about Little Britain - another sketch show - is that it feels natural and the characters are so believable. Each character on this show feels so forced and overdone and you want to laugh because Jocelyn tries so hard, but you just can't laugh.

The Voodoo diet planner was somewhat funny the first time, but after that it's just repetitive.

The car-parking attendant is an example of one who tries so hard to pull laughs. She jumps out of glove compartments. She wears crayola makeup. Her uniform is obviously a handmade costume from the producers. She just appears as a cartoon! Others are too long, too contrived or just plain unfunny. What this show lacks is subtlety.

Another thing that annoys me is how Jocelyn is churning out the catchprases! She really wants t-shirts, coffee cups, mimics, songs and everything to come from this show and it's catchprases. "This is going to take a long time." "I'm calling mum, that ain't right."

I give it 5 because it's still pretty OK and there are funny bits but a lot of it isn't that great. I only watched the first episode and will give it another go tonight.

I'm disappointed thought because I was such a huge fan of 3 Non Blondes.

This is a perfect example of the BBC trying to get 'the ethnic vote', and failing miserably. There are lots and lots of extremely funny black comics working the UK today - Felix Dexter, for instance, has been criminally overlooked for many years and Gina Yashere, although hit and miss, is certainly ten times funnier than this tripe.

I've watched (forced myself) four episodes to try and give it as much of a chance as I could, but, aside from a couple of guilty laughs at the expense of the Nigerian parking attendant and bus driver, there is precious little here to merit even a first viewing, let alone a second.

It's clear that she is trying too hard to be funny but, whilst she may or may not be a good stand-up, the protagonist here most certainly isn't a sketch comic. Admittedly she isn't helped by the hackneyed 'fifteen year old drama students' scripts, but thinly veiled racism posing as 'laughing at ourselves' stopped being funny after the first series of Goodness Gracious Me - when the novelty value wore off.

Incidentally - why is it that, during an age when there is increasingly serious racism between black kids of African and Caribbean descent in our schools, a programme which, basically, is 25 minutes of p***-taking between the two cultures is not considered 'racism'?

Loved the show. It should show now on one of the paid streaming programs.