Joe Haddad’s solo show is a kind of self-referential standup set which tells us about his journey into comedy. It encompasses the negotiation of his dual identity as a Palestinian south Londoner and becomes a coming-of-age story.

Born in Croydon, with Arab Christian parents from Jerusalem, he faced prejudice at his Catholic school, including taunts of “Jew-boy” because there was so little understanding of Palestine and its history of occupation. It follows him to adulthood, and an assumed, Anglicised, stage name of Joe Adams, for fear of being cancelled (even his mother tells him not to mention Palestine during gigs).

But this show, he makes clear, is not all gloom and doom. There is no need for anyone to blanch at the mention of the P-word. Neither will he use the I-word (indeed, he succeeds in circumventing the naming of Israel even once). He leads with heartiness and humour and exuberantly drawn extended family members on his visits to Jerusalem, and nods to his love of Chelsea FC.

There are some good lines – “Tonight I’m occupying the stage,” he says, and he has an effervescent presence but none of it quite hangs together or builds its dramatic trajectory far enough. Haddad flags up the hodge-podge nature of the show himself: if it feels jumbled up, that is because his life is too, he tells us at the off.

It is not exactly a jumble, but it hops too much in tone, from comic to dramatic, not quite nailing either. He waxes lyrical about zatar, tells us about Arab hospitality and gives us affectionately cartoonish takes on his imperious Palestinian mother. He speaks of the cultural expectation to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer, and his departure from that with an entry into comedy. The show is cute in its humour but soft and over-familiar. Football jerseys hang around him but this set seems like a red herring – football is only ever mentioned in cosmetic ways.

He also speaks of 7 October 2023, from hearing about Hamas’s attacks to the horrific images of death coming out of Gaza. But this part comes in short, impressionistic sentences, not grappled with fully enough once it is mentioned. Too many topics are touched on in 80 minutes as a whole and ironically the show feels slight and unfocused as a result – a précis that does not manage to unpack the immense potential of its subject matter.