Jack Rooke’s got a problem with something written about him on the internet. Folded into a slightly-too-small chair in the regal-looking cafe of north London’s St Pancras Renaissance hotel, he shakes his head in dismay, causing his mass of tight curls to jiggle. “Rooke. Is. Gay,” he slowly repeats when reminded of the three words that make up the entirety of his Wikipedia page’s “personal life” section. “There’s a guy I’m currently dating who has mentioned it no less than four times. I’m like, ‘Can somebody just delete that?’”
But while Wikipedia’s summation of Rooke’s personal life may be reductive, its section headed “works” is expansive. It culminates in Big Boys, the 31-year-old comedian and writer’s Bafta-winning, semi-autobiographical coming-of-age comedy, which has just returned to Channel 4 for its third and final season. Based on Rooke’s 2015 Edinburgh fringe show, Good Grief, about the death of his father from cancer, and his 2020 memoir-slash-advice guide, Cheer the F**k Up, it follows grieving, gay student Jack (Dylan Llewellyn) as he navigates life at Brent University and tries to lose his anal virginity.
