Loved him as Jerwayne in PhoneShop and the writer of that is behind this, so should be good.
Starts this Sunday on BBC Two.
The Javone Prince Show
I watched 5 minutes and was bitterly disappointed.
I saw the 'sketch' where two white people ask him if he sells weed (a bit like that Inbetweeners episode) and he says "no, just because I'm black I don't sell drugs".
It was really very very poor.
I actually quite enjoyed it.
It was refreshing, honest and it made me laugh, I can't ask for much more than that.
The song at the end and the Made In Peckham sketch was the only downers for me.
I'll be tuning in next week, which is a pleasant surprise.
Bitterly disappointed by it. I really loved Javone as Jerwayne in PhoneShop but this was just bluddy awful. The sketches were just ridiculous, a five year old child could have written funnier sketches than this. Such a shame.
It will get a second series though, for obvious reasons.
I will add that I don't think it's broken any new mould. It was very simplistic but I don't consider that a negative.
Quote: G180e @ 20th July 2015, 8:47 PM BSTIt will get a second series though, for obvious reasons.
Just like The Stephen K Amos Show. Oh no wait, it didn't (because it wasn't very good).
I thought it was ok. The sketches were a little too one note. They all seemed to be based on subverting the way people are expected to speak. You can't do that for a whole series. I'll give it another watch next week.
It's written either by whites who think they know about racism but actually know very little about it and understand even less OR it's written by blacks who are shite at writing comedy.
Come on, TV bigwigs! You've made Andi Osho a TV name even though she's probably the least funny comedian ever to appear on TV. Do we have to suffer this crap too?
Roodeye: Tell me, Andi and Javone, why are you both being bigged up on UK television?
Andi and Javone: Is it cos we is black?
Roodeye: Yes, it f***ing well IS !!!!!
Dave Chappelle did it 10 years ago
Quote: Rood Eye @ 21st July 2015, 8:05 PM BSTIt's written either by whites who think they know about racism but actually know very little about it and understand even less OR it's written by blacks who are shite at writing comedy.
Come on, TV bigwigs! You've made Andi Osho a TV name even though she's probably the least funny comedian ever to appear on TV. Do we have to suffer this crap too?
Roodeye: Tell me, Andi and Javone, why are you both being bigged up on UK television?
Andi and Javone: Is it cos we is black?
Roodeye: Yes, it f***ing well IS !!!!!
With all due respect Roodeye (and to quote my favourite line from 24 hour Party People), you're just f**king wrong.
Is Andi Osho being 'bigged up'? I haven't seen her on TV for well over a year and as far as I can remember she hasn't had her own show or anything. She's been on TV as much (or as little) as dozens of other comedians who aren't black.
I don't find Russell Kane funny, or Lee Nelson/Simon Bodkin, or John Bishop, or Michael McIntyre, or Nick Helm but they've all had their own show in the last couple of years. Unless the contrast on my TV is knackered, I'm pretty sure none of them are getting on TV because of their ethnicity. They get on TV because some people find them (and Andi Osho, Shappi Khorsandi.......and that's all the non white comedians I can think of that have appeared on TV regularly in the last five years) funny.
I just had a quick scan over BCG's list of new comedy shows launched in 2014 https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/year/2014/ Out of 135 new shows, only four of them (that were more than just a pilot) feature non white people in a main role as far as I could tell.
So if you are suggesting that maybe the BBC are trying fill a quota with The Javone Prince Show, they need to commission about 20 more shows with non caucasian leads to achieve that.
Slightly more than 18% of British people are ethnic minorities, so approximately one in every five new comedy shows should feature a dominance of black, Asian and other minorities if the general public are to be represented equally.
I think the reason The Javone Prince Show was commissioned is because Prince has built up a loyal live audience and some small but good roles on TV. There are also ZERO other shows on mainstream TV specifically targeting the black British community.
Hello Doug.
There are facts and there are opinions, and I can tell you for a FACT that the BBC is trying to recruit more black people both as employees and as TV performers. Believe it or believe it not, I can do no more than to assure you it's true.
And it's a very good policy indeed as long as the people recruited under this programme of positive discrimination are competent to do the jobs they're recruited to do.
Shappi Khorsandi is, in my view, a competent stand-up comedian. She's far from being top class but she's also far from being rubbish. On a chat show or a panel show, she's a very entertaining guest. More power to her Iranian elbow, I say.
In a better world, there would be far more black, Asian, foreign, Muslim, and blatantly Jewish comedians on British TV - and they'd all be somewhere between 'competent' and 'great' at their jobs.
The Javone Prince Show is, for the most part, simply dreadful both in its writing and its performance.
Javone must haved loved The Real McCoy as a kid because this is totally what Felix Dexter and co were rinsing 20 years ago. Yeah it was funny in small bits but why has Phil Bowker wasted his time on it? He could have wrote PhoneShop Series 4 by now. Sketch shows are nearly dead now. The UK will always need solid sitcoms that can run more than 2 series like many classics that sadly ended too soon. I still watch PhoneShop and it was shaping up to last longer than the average but I will never watch Javone's show again. Yeah I said it what.
Quote: DougWonnacott @ 21st July 2015, 2:04 PM BSTJust like The Stephen K Amos Show. Oh no wait, it didn't (because it wasn't very good).
If we're going there, The Stephen K Amos Show most likely did not return as both the producer and executive producer left the BBC not too long afterwards. Although, granted, if it had been a real hit show they'd have ploughed on regardless.
As for Episode 1, on recent sketch show terms I thought it was actually pretty good. Some duds but some really nice ideas too, and I laughed - although not riotously or throughout. Whether tokenistic in its commissioning or not, I think it's a valid piece of programming.
Quote: Aaron @ 24th July 2015, 4:01 PM BSTIf we're going there, The Stephen K Amos Show most likely did not return as both the producer and executive producer left the BBC not too long afterwards. Although, granted, if it had been a real hit show they'd have ploughed on regardless.
As for Episode 1, on recent sketch show terms I thought it was actually pretty good. Some duds but some really nice ideas too, and I laughed - although not riotously or throughout. Whether tokenistic in its commissioning or not, I think it's a valid piece of programming.
Aaron, you are a voice of reason.
It's got some decent reviews. I agree that it's alright. Not hilarious, not awful.
But to suggest that the sole reason it was commissioned is because Prince is black just doesn't make sense. The BBC might be specifically recruiting ethnic minorities, but quite frankly they have several decades to make up for. They are supposed to represent the British population accurately and they're not even close at the moment and they never have been.
Quote: Rood Eye @ 22nd July 2015, 9:32 AM BSTHello Doug.
There are facts and there are opinions, and I can tell you for a FACT that the BBC is trying to recruit more black people both as employees and as TV performers. Believe it or believe it not, I can do no more than to assure you it's true.
And it's a very good policy indeed as long as the people recruited under this programme of positive discrimination are competent to do the jobs they're recruited to do.
Shappi Khorsandi is, in my view, a competent stand-up comedian. She's far from being top class but she's also far from being rubbish. On a chat show or a panel show, she's a very entertaining guest. More power to her Iranian elbow, I say.
In a better world, there would be far more black, Asian, foreign, Muslim, and blatantly Jewish comedians on British TV - and they'd all be somewhere between 'competent' and 'great' at their jobs.
The Javone Prince Show is, for the most part, simply dreadful both in its writing and its performance.
I kind of agree with you until that last sentence. There's no way it was commissioned purely based on Prince's race. I'm sure the main reason it was commissioned was because the BBC thought some people would find it funny (which apparently some do).
Although people knock the great Lenny, at least his comedy seemed to be about his family rather than blacks vs whites.
I thought it was alright. Well performed, and neatly written. It was pretty thin, but no more so than most other sketch shows in recent years. Sadly sketch shows tend to be all on one note nowadays whoever makes them.
Some of you also didn't notice that there was plenty in the show that wasn't race-oriented: chuggers, Made In Peckham, trying to impress the famous musician, trying to chat up a "member of the audience", the tweeting viewers, all of these would have been exactly the same joke whoever had played them.
As for the rest of it, well, write what you know, and if you've experienced racial stereotyping, do some sketches about it, just as it's OK to make 100 sketches about Catholic priests if you're Dave Allen, or write about Northern clubs and cabaret if you're Peter Kay. I've not had much direct experience of any of these three things*, but I don't begrudge people writing about them, and I'm perfectly able to judge whether they're funny or not from my slightly distant standpoint.
*Although I did 100% recognise the rasta takeaway character, very funny. Pity the punchline was half-arsed.