Sitcom Ramy sets off on another new journey

Friday: Ramy - (Channel 4, 11.05pm)
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The sitcom, Ramy, which returns for a second series tonight, has been a huge critical success – it’s picked up a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award, and been nominated for three Emmys.

Its star Ramy Youssef can take a lot of the credit for its success. He not only pays the lead role, he’s also the co-creator and an executive producer, and the show draws on his own experiences.

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For newcomers, it follows Ramy, who like the actor who plays him, has Egyptian heritage but was born in the US and raised in New Jersey.

Ramy and Sheikh Ali MalikRamy and Sheikh Ali Malik
Ramy and Sheikh Ali Malik

Now, he finds himself torn between the traditional Muslim values of his community, and a generation that believes it can live like there are no consequences.

It may not be an uncommon dilemma for children of immigrants, but Youseff admits it’s one he never really saw reflected in TV and films growing up.

The actor and writer told The Independent: “I felt we were either seeing the terrorist stuff, or young men trying to separate themselves from their family and from their culture.

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“Like, ‘Hey Mom and Dad, we’re not in Pakistan any more – I’m going to the prom and getting drunk!’.

“I knew I was interested in portraying something that was genuinely synthesising all of that.”

However, while he may have enjoyed getting to be part of a show that reflects his own experiences, he admits that there are probably questions to be asked about why so many of his fellow award-winners of colour, such as Donald Glover and Aziz Ansari, had to create their own series in order to get meaty roles.

Speaking to the Independent, he said: “I don’t find it to be sad or anything, because I feel very gratified to be able to create the thing that I wanted to make. But the idea that there weren’t just things kind of baked and ready to go [for us]… I don’t know.

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“The only way [forward] is to have people from different communities break into writers’ rooms and have influence in that way to create different worlds. And that’s what we’re doing.”

In the opening episode, Ramy is back home in the US following a trip to Egypt, and he’s picked up a couple of bad habits.

Seeking guidance, he meets up with his imam, but when that doesn’t bring him the help he needs, he instead turns to a sheik (Mahershala Ali, who won Best Supporting Actor Oscars for his roles in Moonlight and Green Book, and was Emmy nominated for Ramy) from the local Sufi centre.

Guided by his new spiritual mentor, Ramy enters into an Islamic oath and sets off on a new journey.

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Sadly, in the second episode of this opening double bill, his dedication to Sheikh Malik is already wearing thin with his friends and family.

Will Ramy’s new friendship with a former Iraq war veteran go down better?

Well, when an anti-Muslim protest triggers his PTSD, it leads to a violence, so possibly not…

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