Jack Whitehall

Jack Whitehall banned from talking about girlfriend

Jack Whitehall has revealed that he is banned from talking about his girlfriend Gemma Chan in his stand-up shows.

Jack Whitehall: Bad Education USA wont butcher original

Jack Whitehall, who will star in An American Education for ABC, and told Digital Spy that the script by Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory had not "butchered" the BBC show.

This week's new live comedy

Previews of Jack Whitehall, Catriona Knox and Rob Beckett.

Alfie Brown, Soho Theatre - comedy review

His brutal honesty and lack of an edit button make him a little Russell Brand-lite, while his slightly plummy tones evoke Jack Whitehall, but Alfie Brown is developing into a distinctive dissenting voice. What's it all about? Ask Alfie.

Radio Times review

Is it me or has Jack Whitehall overdone it a bit lately? The plummy comic is everywhere you look - panel games, sitcoms, chat shows (several of each), comedy awards, plus his own show on BBC Three with his dad. He has become inescapable. (Anyone would think he had a book out for Christmas.)

Here, in an edition postponed from December, he kicks off the bombastic stand-up show with a frantic routine about his experience with a cheese strudel on a German airline. It's not in itself hilarious and in lesser hands could fall flat but Whitehall powers it home through sheer, over-caffeinated energy.

Then Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan gets things going with a much better routine: her impression of Beyoncé going to the grocery store is worth seeing.

It's been another winning year for Graham Norton - great guests (his New Year's Eve line-up this year was extraordinary) and great audience figures. Even if you saw every episode of the most recent series these best-bit compilations are always worth a look. So prepare to relive the good and the bad.

The good include Lady Gaga forging an unlikely, instant friendship with EastEnders' Dot Cotton, June Brown; the two Doctors Matt Smith and David Tennant taking fan questions; and Paul McCartney talking about his collaboration with Michael Jackson. And the bad? Michelle Pfeiffer and a very unforthcoming Robert De Niro looking bored and baffled as Cher and Jennifer Saunders stole the show. And Harrison Ford seemingly very unimpressed by Jack Whitehall.

Radio Times review

As you'd expect from the creators of Peep Show, this university comedy is a cut above - and the third series was the slickest to date. Jack Whitehall was born to play JP, the show's fabulously self-centred posho (he'd prefer "ledge"). Plain-speaking punk Vod - surely the coolest character on TV - revealed her vulnerable side when her mother came to stay, making her badly behaved daughter look like a herbal-tea-quaffing nun. Also vying for the best gags was resident oddball Howard who fell head over heels for their new housemate, culminating in the most delectably awkward first date in the history of awkward first dates.

One of the few festive programmes where the people on screen are normally drunker than the viewers. Jimmy Carr again presides over a panel game that usually attracts a good deal of correspondence from people who like to be offended at Christmas.

The passing of legislation earlier this year forcing Jack Whitehall to be included in all comedy programmes on all channels was controversial, but - perhaps due to some sort of hangover from his competitive days as a public schoolboy - he's well suited to the quiz format.

Whitehall and fellow bellower Jonathan Ross have gentler comic minds to offset them, answering questions about the past 12 months of news: Kristen Schaal is this year's woman, and there's also Richard Ayoade, who's effortlessly defused this gnarly bearpit in past Big Fat Quizzes. Plus, Noel Fielding and Dara O'Briain.

It's like student life. You're thrown together with random strangers. You make friends, laugh like idiots, do bucket bongs and bond during small-hours heart-to-hearts. Then you moan about the washing up, pair up, grow up and drift apart. This third season of Fresh Meat has felt a bit like this process - and not altogether in a good way. It's as if the writers are trying to keep the first-year fun going, rather than accepting that what once was brilliant has now run its course.

JP epitomises this tail-chasing confusion - he's no nearer to understanding himself and in danger of being left behind. Jack Whitehall's character remains the main reason for watching Fresh Meat however: his blend of idiocy, neediness and entitlement is still sporadically hilarious. But we've long since ceased to care about Josie and Kingsley's relationship, so the crisis point they reach in tonight's season finale doesn't pack much of an emotional punch.

Elsewhere, Vod and Oregon break up to make up and Howard and Candice edge closer to a change in relationship status. Can Fresh Meat sustain another series? The performances continue to partially mask the longueurs, but we hope they quit while they're just about ahead.

Opinion: Jack Whitehall & the big tour warm-up problem

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle over the announcement that Jack Whitehall is to play a big work-in-progress gig at the Hammersmith Apollo in February in the the run-up to his UK tour. I can't see what all the fuss is about. Tickets will only be £20 whereas when he comes to Wembley Arena in March tickets, including booking fee, will be £32.25.