Mawaan Rizwan on turning pain into comedy – and why Juice season 2 hits different

At 34, the YouTuber-turned-stand-up comedian, actor and writer has realised that “life isn’t just fodder”. “In the early days, I’d be in a writers’ room and I’d disclose a terrible thing from my life that would get worked into the script,” he recalls. “Then I’d get a note back saying, ‘I don’t think the character should feel that’, or ‘That makes me really dislike them.’ And I’d be dying inside, feeling vulnerable and exposed, because that was the choice I made.

“Sometimes you go through a traumatic thing or horrific event and there’s a part of your brain that’s like, ‘This would make a great episode.’ But you have to be careful because sometimes it’s a coping mechanism and it stops you from feeling what you need to be feeling in the moment. You have to learn which one’s which. I’ve been learning to understand the difference between what’s for me and what’s for the art.”

We are discussing the perils – and the pearls – of mining life for material because Juice, Rizwan’s glorious BBC Three comedy, has returned for a second series and concludes this week. The first, shown in 2023, earned rave reviews and won an RTS Award for best comedy drama. Rizwan, meanwhile, picked up the Bafta for best male comedy performance for his turn as Jamma, a hyper, hapless manchild whose inability – or unwillingness – to be a grown-up usually ends in disaster or humiliation.

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While Rizwan says that Juice is “definitely fictional”, it is undoubtedly at least semi-autobiographical. It feels authentic to be otherwise. Just don’t confuse “true” with “realistic”. One of the show’s joys is its tone. If Fleabag was cynical and Big Boys sentimental, Juice is surreal. When Jamma gets into a heightened emotional state, the world around him changes. Called into the office of his green-fingered boss, for instance, an anxious Jamma finds himself in a jungle of predatory plants, with malign vines making beelines for his ankles. Elsewhere, in a fraught moment with his buttoned-up older boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey), an avoidant Jamma disappears down a tunnel in his bed.

While being fantastical, Juice is also familial. His brother Nabhaan (Informer, Kaos) co-stars as Jamma’s brother Isaac, and their mother, Shahnaz, plays the boys’ mum Farida. “Back in the day, when I used to make YouTube videos, that was the thing that kept me close to my family. When we put on wigs and played these silly characters, we could talk about taboo subjects. Comedy sort of saved us. On Juice, I get to see my family and so avoid the guilt that comes with not seeing them. And, better still, I get paid for it.”

Rizwan credits his mother – who emigrated from Pakistan to the UK, became a single parent and for years lived under the threat of being deported – with instilling his drive. It was her belief that the phrase was “When life gives you mangoes, make mango juice” that gives Juice its name. “There is a ferociousness with which my mum raised us and

I really thank her for it. Because she achieved the impossible, coming to this country and doing what she did, in a way, I had no choice. I could not be a failure. Even if I was a plumber, I’d be smashing it.”

Does smashing it come with its own pressure? Not really, he says. There was no “difficult second album” syndrome with Juice. “There were so many things I wanted to do that couldn’t fit into the first six episodes, so they’re in the second series.”

That said, Rizwan did feel a certain weight. “Every now and again, I would turn to my left and see the Bafta staring at me,” he says. “So I gave it to my mum to keep and now it’s in her bathroom.” He also says there were times when he worried that success would remove him from the conditions that inspired him. “I remember when I was rich enough to afford my first Egyptian cotton bedsheets, I was like, ‘It’s the beginning of the end!’ But I got over myself.”

Born in Pakistan, Rizwan describes himself as queer. By virtue of his identity – or more accurately, his identities – he believes anything he does is political. “If you’re creative and from a marginalised background, sometimes there’s a pressure to be heavy-handed with a message or to right some of the wrongs of society through your work. That’s a shame because it can squash creativity and reduce the joy. And joy can in itself be political.”

He is wary of being seen as speaking for anyone other than himself. “My goal is always to be someone who can’t be put in a box – a slippery fish, never a spokesperson. I’m not representing a community. I’m just waking up every day and writing one more page of script or filming one more scene.”

Long may it continue.

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