Little Miss Jocelyn

After succumbing to the ram-it-down-your-throat hype campaign for this show, I thought I'd give it a whirl after tonight's episode of "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" had faded off the screen. And I can honestly say that instead of sitting on my couch with an expression of bemused disgust on my face for thirty minutes, I wish I had simply stood up and head-butted the wall until my face bled.

This is quite simply the worst programme I have ever seen masquerading as television comedy. Ever. Including that god awful one with Jasper Carrot where his kid's in a wheelchair or something. Watching "Little Miss Jocelyn" is like being hit in the face with a massive fish with the word "stupid" carved into its flank.

It beggars belief how such a show even got commissioned, let alone made it past BBC executives, producers, script meetings, rewrites and all of the normal processes every TV show goes through, only to end up as this steaming pile of pig's offal. The only conclusion I can draw is that those in charge of our entertainment industry - get ready for the irony - really don't have the first clue about entertainment.

But hey, I could sit here and bitch all day. let's go through the show. I watched. She did a cheap, "Last Of The Summer Wine"-esquire wheelchair out of control sketch. The audience whooped. I was silent but carried on watching. She dressed as a man in a fat suit. The audience howled. I was silent and carried on watching. She screamed repeatedly like a distressed boar for the entire duration of a sketch. The audience loved it, seemingly unaware of the Stupid Fish continuing its terrific facial barrage. Televisual root canal work. I carried on watching. A sketch with absolutely no direction - which appeared to be about some fitness fanatics or something - meandered on for about ten minutes. The audience seemed to like this as well, but by that time there was no doubt in my mind that they were being held at gunpoint. A small whimper escaped as I realised I had lost the use of my legs.

I implore anyone who hasn't seen this show to give it a watch. You'll see just how bad television comedy can be. And a note to the BBC - There are tonnes of perfectly talented ethnic minority comedians out there. Don't give a show to the first one who comes along just to fill your quota.

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.

OK, I simply adore this new comedy sketch show by 3 Non Blondes star, Jocelyn Jee Esien. But first of all, I must admit that this show is an acquired taste. The less positive comments about it are understandable, considering the sketch material.

But for me, it is Esien's sheer versatility and wide-range of characters, that make this a winning formula. She becomes that character and adopts a whole new persona, in each sketch! My favourites include acid-tongued, man hating Gladys Kingston, Fiona the office employee who believes that no-one knows that she is black, Jiffy the busy-body traffic warden with her love for stopping ordinary people and lecturing them on various topics, and so on. Her facial expressions are just priceless, too.

You either love or hate it. I personally can't get enough of it.

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.