Javone Prince Q&A

19 October 2011

For those who've not seen the programme before, describe your character.
Jerwayne is one of the top salesmen at Phoneshop, alongside his best mate Ashley. He loves the finer things in life, he is a bit of a snob and doesn't care who knows it. He is a bit of a fusspot. He loves the ladies, clothes and money. Unfortunately for him he still lives at home with his mum, but he keeps it on the down-low, so please don't go spreading that about. In the words of Jay-Z "I'm not a businessman, I'm a Business. Man".

 

What characteristics, if any, do you share with your character?
There aren't really many characteristics that I share with Jerwayne, although I am a bit fussy about food and clothes.

 

Series One was very successful, what can we look forward to from your character in the second series?
I don't want to give too much away, but more idiotic foolishness from Jerwayne you can be sure of! He gets the rug pulled from under him quite a bit in this series. He finds himself in awkward situations and doesn't always make the right decisions to get out of them, so hence he becomes the butt of the joke, which is great.

 

How does the rehearsal process work for Phoneshop? How much influence do you have in what your character does/says?
Phil Bowker is our boss and he is the main writer/producer and director. So for this series Phil wrote all six episodes, he would send the scripts over to all of us to read through. We would then have workshop days to improvise around what had been written, and rewrite some of the scenes. Phil's openness and generosity allows for us to have a great deal of creative input.

 

What have been the funniest and/or most memorable moments of filming this second series?
It must have been the last week of filming and Kayvan Novak was on set and I was acting opposite him and every take that he did was completely different but he kept on doing one particular thing, I don't want to give the gag away, but I cried with laughter, I don't know how many takes we did in the end but when I heard Phil laughing as well I knew it was ok, we weren't in that much trouble. 

 

 Who are your comedy heroes/most inspiring tv comedy series?
The first comedian I watched growing up was Benny Hill, he had a comedy show on Monday nights on ITV. I think I was about seven or eight and it used to be so funny. I also loved Laurel and Hardy on BBC2, I loved the chemistry that they had between them. Then my mum got cable and I was hooked on ‘In Living Colour' a comedy sketch show with the Wayans brothers (Scary Movie) and Jim Carey. I felt those guys were taking comedy to another level, I just remember screaming with laughter. I could relate to the comedy even though they were American and I was an English boy. When it came to sketches about being broke I could really relate to it and I enjoyed it even more.  I loved watching Comic Views on BET and watching Bernie Mac, Martin Lawrence and DL Hughley. I loved watching ‘Different World', a television series that started in 1987. Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison) was my ultimate hero with his glasses/sunglasses. I wanted to be him when I grew up. And let's not forget the show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But my ultimate comedy film, which is why I wanted to get involved in comedy, was the 1988 film ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels‘, it was the whipping scene where Michael Cain whipped Steve Martin and I screamed with laughter. I decided then, as an eight year old child, that I wanted to do comedy.