Little Miss Jocelyn

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'?

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.

I watched all the episodes one after the other on BBC 3 one night and i thought it was hilarious. Even though it isn't as funny as Catherine Tate or French and Saunders and any other leading English actresses, she really does do a variety of realistic characters.

One of my favourites has to be the teenagers on the bus, who talk about absolute crap, but it is hilarious. Another is the parking ticket women who seems to think she knows the "quain"(queen). She even has an argument on a real street rubbish collecting and it is hilarious. Another character she plays is a black posh women who seems to think if she speaks with a posh accent and dresses like she has just ages 50 billion years people won't realise she is black, is class.

I really would advise to watching this, its good to get a variety on comedy.

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

I really don't understand why so many people dislike this show. It certainly holds its own against all the other character based sketch shows that have appeared over the last few years.

I didn't like her previous show 3 Non Blondes & had low expectations. Admittedly, there are a few sketches that fail to hit the mark (especially in the first series), but the majority make me laugh out loud. With such a large variety of characters & ideas there will always be some that you won't like. However, the richness of 'Little Miss Jocelyn' stems from this variety. Characters such as the Nigerian Driving Instructor, the Toilet Attendant, the Disgusting Shop worker, Gladys Kingston the foul mouthed man hater, the Dietician / Witchdoctor, Tantrum Woman and the Traffic Warden are used in the context of sketches but also in the real world in a hidden camera show style. This works beautifully & shows just how versatile & inventive Jocelyn Jee Esien is. Her skill at portraying so many very different comic characters (Old women, teenagers, men etc) in a convincing manner is impressive & so is the attention to detail. The Bus Driver & Traffic Attendant are absolutely spot on in the way they behave & speak and they're worryingly close to the real people who do those jobs.

I love Gladys Kingston, the funeral chasing old ladies, the Umwopwopwopwops and the Toilet Attendant. Just give this show a chance. Don't avoid it just because a few people here hate it.