Jon Pointing as Danny and Dylan Llewellyn as Jack
(Picture: Channel 4/Christopher Harris)“I’m actually quite sick of myself at this point,” laughs Jack Rooke. The jokingly self-confessed “one trick pony” (actually a comedian, writer and mental health ambassador) has built a prolific career over the last seven years writing about his experiences with mental health and loss through his teens and early twenties - he’s now 27. “Some people might think I’ve overdone it, but grief is the thing that has shaped my identity more than anything else in my life,” he says.
His new Channel 4 comedy Big Boys is no less personal. An amalgamation of Rooke’s past three theatre shows, Big Boys is a broadly autobiographical snapshot of his time at university following the death of his father, Laurie, when Rooke was 15. Aside from being a writer and executive producer on the series, Rooke likens his role to Mary Alice’s in Desperate Housewives. “You know? Because you don’t see me but you hear my voice narrating the story from a kind of knowing perspective,” he laughs.
