The trials and tribulations of a C-grade celebrity struggling to find her place in the media world.
Jaquie Brown is an egocentric and overly ambitious TV reporter working as the light relief on a hard hitting New Zealand current affairs show called McHuntly at Seven. With the help of her morally bankrupt publicist Kim Sharee, Jaquie tries to claw her way back up the media ladder, but her efforts are stifled by the arrival of a new reporter, Serita Singh, whose journalistic style is strikingly similar to Jaquie’s and seems to be stealing her thunder at an alarming rate. The Jaquie Brown Diaries takes a satirical look at the life of a c-grade celebrity and brings the society pages to frightening fruition as Jaquie spews on pedigree pets, starts a fashion show food fight and goes head to head in an uninformed live debate with the Prime Minister. The show has been a huge success in New Zealand. It was voted best comedy by The Listener (ahead of Flight of the Concords) and despite the fact that Jaquie had never acted before, her self-depreciating debut earned her the title of New Zealander of the Year in both The NZ Herald and North & South magazine. The first series has also been a hit on MTV’s Logo network in the U.S. Matt Gilbert of the Boston Globe called the show ‘delightfully cringeworthy’ and said it put other major network sitcoms to shame.
