Jack Whitehall

Interview: Jack Whitehall

Comedian Jack Whitehall is famous for playing slacker toffs in Fresh Meat and Bad Education. He shares an unusual moment with Metro in which he was expelled from a friend's party for peeing in a Wellie.

The seasonal return of the Little Crackers series, which features comedy shorts based on the autobiographical recollections of various actors and comedians. Previous participants have included Stephen Fry, Victoria Wood, Jack Whitehall and Sheridan Smith. This latest series begins with Joanna Lumley's Baby, Be Blonde, in which the 19-year-old Jo (Ottilie Mackintosh) is a struggling model who gets a break when she buys a blonde wig. "It didn't, but it made me feel that I had changed the course of my life," says Lumley in the behind-the-scenes film which follows the short. Also starring this week in later episodes are Rebecca Front and Caroline Quentin.

Greg McHugh: The man behind Gary, Tank Commander

Greg McHugh is a rising comedy star who has had a busy year, writing and taking the lead in cult series Gary, Tank Commander as well as playing alongside Jack Whitehall in Channel 4's student comedy Fresh Meat.

Jack Whitehall is on a roll. His performance as feckless toff JP in Fresh Meat is a galloping comic tour de force. His sitcom-writing debut, Bad Education, was well received. His national stand-up tour has just come out on DVD in time for the Christmas gold rush. And now here he is guest hosting Britain's top panel show at the grand old age of 23.

By way of counterweight, one of tonight's guests will be the formidable and funny Baroness Trumpington, at 90 the oldest guest ever to appear in the series. Her career has stretched from Bletchley Park via a spell as mayor of Cambridge to a notorious V-sign caught on camera during an altercation in the House of Lords. Apprentice lemon-sucker Nick Hewer makes up the numbers.

What I see in the mirror: Jack Whitehall

I think I look like a Mumford - as in, & Sons.

Series two of the excellent student comedy comes to a close as the end of the academic year approaches and the housemates face big decisions regarding the future. With Oregon's (Charlotte Ritchie) past sins about to catch up with her, Kingsley (Joe Thomas) determined to move out, a shock revelation about Howard (Greg McHugh), and an oinking new cast member - it's no wonder JP (Jack Whitehall) is worried that his dream of domestic bliss is about to crumble forever.

Jack Whitehall interview

Jack Whitehall should have had an easy route into the showbiz lark - his agent dad represented the likes of Dame Judi Dench and Colin Firth.
Unfortunately, Michael Whitehall suspected his son was rubbish.

I know Fresh Meat didn't start out as a rom-com and writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong still might be horrified to find their creation described as such. But that is undoubtedly what it has become, albeit in a very street-smart, sharp and funny way. It's amazing how many rom-coms forget to add the com part.

But if it was the humour that initially caught people's attention, it has long since become just one element in a show of increasing depth. Much as I admired the performances of Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid et al in Last Tango, I wasn't greatly involved with their characters and I wasn't at all put out when their hour was up. With Fresh Meat, I am. I feel a sense of loss when the closing credits roll. I've come to care about these people. I love the way they move from the deadly serious to the totally absurd mid-sentence, in the way only university students can. I love the awkwardness of their relationships. Or rather, entanglements.

As JP - his Stowe chums call him JPaedo, but be careful what you tweet - Jack Whitehall is in danger of making posh boys sympathetic and Josie's attempts to make the housemates believe she hasn't been kicked off the course were becoming more and more poignant. Only Vod could imagine Josie must have acquired a smack habit. Don't ever change, Vod. Nor you, Kingsley and Oregon. And as for Howard ...? How could Sabine have gone back to Holland?

Even the minor characters - the geology lecturer excepted - are well drawn. Professor Shales (Tony Gardner), Oregon's ex - she has now got off with his son - is a case in point. As John, the slightly seedy man having a midlife crisis in Last Tango, Gardner was fairly one-dimensional: as Shales, the slightly seedy man having a midlife crisis, his desperate sadness is almost touching. Almost. When rom-coms are this good, what's not to love?