Jo Caulfield Won't Shut Up!

Radio 4 has done the dirty on Jo Caulfield, whose new series Jo Caulfield Won't Shut Up! began a few Tuesdays ago (Radio 4, 6.30pm). For the first week, everything went fine - Caulfield was able to present a series of hit-and-miss sketches about herself without frightening the horses. In fact, one skit about being confused for another 15-year-old Jo Caulfield on Facebook was a little gem. But then last week Radio 4 only went and put on the latest series of Laura Solon - Talking and Not Talking.

Yes, of course they work in different areas of comedy. Caulfield talks about herself, Solon anything but. And it's also true that any sketch show - any comedy show, with the exception of the ever-brilliant Bleak Expectations, in fact - would struggle to compete against Solon. But separating them by a mere 24 hours, now, that's cruel. And all Caulfield has to cheer herself up with is the knowledge that her show's theme tune knocks spots off Solon's piece of synthesiser whimsy that achieves the trick of being both really annoying and difficult to dislodge from the mental jukebox.

Jo Caulfield Won't Shut Up! must surely have given any would-be comics encouragement to nip down to their local open mic comedy session and stake a claim to a future telling gags. The 30 minutes is peppered with a few decent jokes, but given the cast of supporting writers, it's pretty dated, very cosy and takes precious few risks. On this evidence, Caulfield needs to up her radio game - or shut up.