Last week, I went to St Margaret’s Institute to see comedian Jamie Radcliffe’s second solo show: an impressive feat, considering the performer is only eighteen. After the Oxford Comedy Festival earlier this summer and its fleet of charmingly scruffy fringe preview shows, I was used to wholehearted performances of still baggy material. Radcliffe’s show Please Don’t Judge Me, had almost the opposite feel to it: it was polished to the point of blinding us to his natural charisma. It was clear the comedian had anxiously rehearsed the material to the bone, and in places, his delivery came from muscle memory rather than revelling in the moment.
The material was quite varied, a busy mix of music and anecdote. There was a fun collection of puns that used different notes on the piano, and a very funny bit about reaching a certain, pre-teen age in school and being allowed to sit on the benches instead of the floor feeling like the most grown-up experience in the world. A skit about being accosted by a very drunk girl while completely sober began to feel a bit mean-spirited after a while, and cast a smug sheen over Radcliffe’s first song of the night, the self-satisfied ‘Nonalcoholic’. Radcliffe’s songs have been featured in the past on BBC Radio Oxford, and it’s easy to see why - the music is catchy and polished, and there’s a Bo Burnham-esque drollness to his lyrics, particularly to the song ‘Banter’.
At the halfway point, Radcliffe leaves the stage. We are then treated to a corny voiceover between him and his alter-ego, a nerdy but conceited theatre kid called Monty, who he returns to the stage as. Monty wears a rainbow bowtie, glasses, and suspenders, and talks constantly about what a star he’ll be, his inability to get a date, and his ‘Mumsy’. Sadly this was the flattest part of the show for me, as the persona felt paper-thin and not especially funny. Being a fifteen-minute segment halfway through the show, it also divided up the hour somewhat awkwardly. More structure and connection between the segments throughout would’ve also improved the evening for me.
The alter-ego seemed borne out of a desire to tell wackier, more self-deprecating jokes without Radcliffe having to deprecate his actual self. I found myself wishing this material was worked more into his persona, which seemed almost Peter Parker average, to the point where it made the title feel somewhat ironic - who would judge this witty, polite, teetotal teenager?
There’s a running gag throughout that Jamie Radcliffe greatly resembles a younger James Acaster, in both his appearance and comedic style. While the former is very much true, Radcliffe comes off as a kid at Christmas, eager to perform his new show for the family; Acaster seems more like his grumpy older brother drafted in to help.
Acaster’s persona is underpinned by this perverse, introverted bite - he allows the audience to sit in their discomfort, and humour bubbles up out of relief. Radcliffe is similarly at his funniest when he stops doting on his audience and loses himself in the performance, and could afford to do this more.
That said, the evening was on the whole engaging and amusing. It's clear that Jamie Radcliffe has both the ambition and the imagination to go far in the comedy world; I look forward to seeing what he does next.