Jack Whitehall

Lessons I learned from watching Bad Education

I'm not calling Bad Education groundbreaking television, but I eventually came to feel affection for history teacher Alfie Wickers (Jack Whitehall) and his classroom full of underachieving teenagers.

The unfeasibly tall Greg Davies, best known for his explosions of exasperation in Cuckoo and The Inbetweeners, reveals his surreal side in this mildly manic sitcom which charts the comic misadventures of Dan.

A teacher who makes Jack Whitehall's Alfie in Bad Education look like an Ofsted box-ticker, Dan delights in indulging his pupils with wild flights of sci-fi fantasy, while outside the classroom his personal life is falling down quicker than his trousers. It's all mildly bonkers.

Jack Whitehall and Michael Whitehall interview

Jack Whitehall introduces 'the funniest man in the world' - his dad, Michael Whitehall.

Now firmly ensconced in the Friday night post-news slot made desirable by Jonathan Ross, Norton has shown a similar ability to lure in the A-listers. The first episode of this latest run of his chatshow (series 14, if you're counting) is, oddly, an all-male affair, with Harrison Ford and Benedict Cumberbatch filling the Hollywood quota, and Jack Whitehall continuing his career-long tiptoe along the line between cheeky and thoroughly obnoxious. Maudlin strummy type James Blunt performs his new single.

The battle of the Friday night chat shows is rejoined, with Graham Norton returning to the pitch Channel 4 rival Alan Carr has had to himself these past few weeks.

Norton is hitting big on opening night, with Hollywood legend Harrison Ford, on the promo trail for new movie Ender's Game, and the versatile Benedict Cumberbatch dropping by for a chat and Jack Whitehall providing the funnies.

Friday nights get a boost as the chat show returns after too long a break. Maybe it's because he packs his sofa with three celebrities simultaneously that Norton's shows go with a partyish swing. At best they can throw up the kind of unlikely encounters that give us a glimpse of the real person under the celebrity armour. Then again, that armour rarely comes thicker than Harrison Ford's: he pays a visit tonight to promote his new sci-fi movie Ender's Game.

More exciting is the visit of the hallowed Benedict Cumberbatch, fresh from playing Julian Assange on the big screen. Jack Whitehall will be on the comedy end of the couch while James Blunt provides the music.

Jack Whitehall: My dad, the touchline troublemaker

There are competitive fathers and there's Michael Whitehall. In an extract from their new book, Him & Me, actor and comedian Jack Whitehall explains how his dad received a lifetime touchline ban from the school sports field.

The school-based sitcom playground is getting pretty crowded, with the bell just rung on Big School and Jack Whitehall's Bad Education still running around dropping its shorts at anyone who's interested. But for my money the pick of the Class of 2013 is Some Girls (BBC3), which scores one vital A* over the opposition: it looks as though it's set in a school that might actually exist.

On the face of it, the group of south London bffs at the heart of Some Girls is painfully PC: one sorted black girl, one ditzy white blonde, one brainy Asian and one baby Kathy Burke. So it's full credit to the spark in the writing of Bernadette Davies and a set of confident performances from the four leads that this formula adds up to more than the sum of its parts. It works.

Led from the front by Adelayo Adedayo as Viva, who was facing down the tricky issue of dumping a fit boyfriend who was too thick for her, last night's episode centred on the sudden death of a science teacher - cue the arrival of Broadchurch's Jonathan Bailey as unashamed lust object - and the fallout therein.

It was all dealt with delightfully distastefully, as voiced by the straight-talking Aussie gym teacher/resident hard-faced bitch: 'We'll provide a counsellor - if you can't talk it over with your mates like a normal person.'

Two panels of celebrities led by David Mitchell and Phill Jupitus. An extremely sarcastic host with a distinctive laugh. And the occasional run-in with Ofcom and certain newspapers when someone (hello Jack Whitehall) takes things too far. Yes, it can only be Channel 4's quick-witted pub-quiz-style-show, which returns with some fiendish questions about the 1980s. Most of the guests should have no trouble recalling the events of that decade but we are a bit concerned about how much Alan Carr will remember. He wasn't born until 1976.