Comedian Jack Whitehall has confessed that he finds it “galling” watching the opportunities that his father Michael has had since they worked together on Netflix series, Travels With My Father. The 34-year-old comedian, actor and presenter, who was born in London, recalled how his American agent asked whether his dad would be interested in doing stand-up comedy in the States.
Chatting to WalesOnline’s podcast In the Spotlight, Jack shared: “I did a show in LA and came off stage thinking that I’d killed it and my American agent was waiting for me in my green room. The first thing that he said to me was, ‘Jack I meant to ask you, do you think your dad would consider doing any live work out here?’
“I was like, ‘Now is not the time to be fishing around, trying to see if my dad will do stand-up. At least let me have a moment to bask in my own glory’ but no, all he wanted to know was whether Michael Whitehall would be willing to go and do stand-up in America and the answer is a resounding no.” Listen to In the Spotlight with Jack Whitehall below.
Read more: Jack Whitehall adds Swansea date to 2023 Settle Down tour and tickets go on sale very soon
Viewers immediately fell in love with Jack and Michael’s relationship during Travels With My Father and were gutted when the show came to an end after five seasons in 2021. The comedian has not ruled out the possibility of working with his father again, though.
“I’d still like to do more stuff with [my dad],” Jack said. “I’m very keen also to get out of his shadow a little bit. I really enjoyed doing that show with him but towards the end, I got tired of people endlessly coming up to me and going, ‘Oh mate your dad’s funnier than you!’ I don’t know whether I want that to be the thing that follows me around for the rest of my career.
“We have such a close relationship and we did have a lot of fun making that show. There are some ideas for things that we might be able to have fun with going forward but he’s off doing his own stuff now. He’s got his own podcast and he’s doing reality television shows and he never stops working so it’s whether he can fit me into his diary.
“It’s still weird seeing my mum and dad bantering with Richard Madeley on Good Morning Britain. That will never not get weird. Most comedians worry about getting cancelled for something they say and I have my dad just careering around the breakfast television circuit like a human hand grenade. I always feel like the thing that’ll get me cancelled will come out of his mouth!”
Jack was talking about his return to touring. He is set to bring his new show, Settle Down, to Swansea Arena on May 27. Speaking about this he said: “It’s so amazing to be back on tour and doing stand-up. I’ve had a four year gap since I did it last and I got to the end of that and thought, ‘Oh god I absolutely hate the sound of my own voice, I’m never going to do that again.’ I even accidentally said it on a podcast and there was a news story saying that I’d quit stand-up. I probably said that in the heat of the moment. As time went by I just missed it so much so I started doing some stand-up gigs and before I knew it, I had an hour's worth of material and now I’m back on the road and absolutely loving it again.”
Jack added that returning to stand-up did not come without pressure. “There’s always a little bit of pressure when you’re going on tour and you haven’t been doing it for a while. You get so rusty so quickly. What’s been great about this tour is I’ve actually had more warmups and club gigs in the run up to it than I’ve ever had on a tour. I started writing this material over a year ago so it feels like I’ve had way more time to prepare it than I ever had.”
He described how he has a “process” when it comes to comedy. “The first thing will be thinking of the funny thing and writing it down in my notes on my phone,” Jack explained. “Before you go and try it out on stage, there are social situations where I will try at some point to weave it into conversation.
“There’s definitely been quite a lot of instances of me trying the material out on my girlfriend and her looking back at me blankly and going, ‘I don’t get it’. She can be somewhat of a tough crowd. My dad also famously has a resting b*** face so he’s never been a great person to trial material in front of.”
As ever Jack has included material in the new show that is based on his family life. The new tour is billed as his ‘most personal yet’ and includes jokes about his girlfriend, model Roxy Horner, who he has been with since 2020.
“It’s a reflection on where I am in my life right now,” he admitted. “Since I last toured, a lot of things have happened - I’ve moved into a house, I’ve got a life partner and I have a dog. There are some seismic life events that are on the horizon and [the new show] is about my struggle sometimes to settle down and become a fully-fledged adult.
“I look at my peers and friends and family who have seamlessly transitioned into this next chapter of their lives, then I look at myself and realise that sometimes I may be dragging my feet. I always figured that I might be like that guy who is in perennial arrested development but this show is about me saying goodbye to the period of misadventure that was my twenties.”
In his new show, Jack says that he has turned to his girlfriend Roxy for inspiration and cites her as his ‘muse’. “My relationship feels like fresh territory that I haven’t really explored before because we didn’t know each other when I was touring last. I’ve drawn on that for inspiration in the new show and that has been quite fruitful, albeit a little bit stressful having to help her come to terms with the reality of going out with a comedian. Nothing she says is safe and no area of our life is sacred.
“We were watching the Ed Sheeran documentary the other day and the whole first episode is about his amazing wife and how much he loves her and how she inspired him to write the song Perfect. My girlfriend was watching it and she said, ‘I want to be married to Ed Sheeran. He writes songs about his wife called Perfect and you just tell jokes about our sex life!’ I told her that was the brutal reality of being in a relationship with a comic.”
Speaking ahead of performing at Swansea Arena, Jack stressed how excited he is to return to Wales. “I’m really looking forward to visiting the new venue because it looks amazing and it’s always exciting to go into a new arena that you’ve never played before and have a new experience. I love the crowds in Wales - I’ve obviously spent a lot of time there and filmed shows there. I’m really looking forward to that gig, it’ll be great.”
In recent years Jack’s career has taken him around the world. He has starred in several Hollywood films including Jungle Cruise and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Speaking about this Jack said: “I’m very conscious that I need to let my audience know that I haven’t travelled up my own a***. I think for me, that’s always the first thing that I want to address and make sure that within 10 minutes of coming to see me, you’ll realise that I haven’t lost my sense of humour and the first stories that I’ll be telling on stage are all about self-flagellation and shoving my face down into the dirt.”
Between 2011-2016 Jack starred opposite Welsh actress Kimberley Nixon in Channel 4 comedy series Fresh Meat. Speaking about working on that show he said: “I’ve got absolutely amazing memories of working on [Fresh Meat], I love Kimberley and all of the Fresh Meat cast. We had such an incredible time doing that show and I was so under-appreciative of it at the time because it was the first TV show that I’d ever filmed. We’ve remained in contact ever since and we have meetups and reunions and are very much kind of each other’s lives and I have such fond memories of doing that show.
Despite conquering Hollywood, Jack still has one big career ambition - to play a villain. “I really love Alan Rickman and I’ve grown my hair out and my beard so I look like him in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I’m hoping that a casting director will see my new look and think, ‘He can pull that off’. I want to be the badguy in a slightly camp, over-the-top action film and chew the hell out of that scenery.”
Tickets for Jack Whitehall’s UK tour are available via pre-sale from 10am on Wednesday 5th April and go on general sale from Thursday 6th April, available from www.ticketmaster.co.uk/jack-whitehall / www.jackwhitehall.com
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