Jack Whitehall

Gigglebox weekly #43 - Hit the Road Jack

This week saw a new comedy show starring Jack Whitehall on Channel 4. The problem is that it's a bit hard to categorise it.

Jack Whitehall was on a truly tedious journey whith his comedy roadshow Hit the Road Jack, which began in Cardiff. I couldn't have been won over more decisively by Whitehall's stint as student toff in Fresh Meat; it was spot on, very funny, and that bit with the dying horse unexpectedly slayed me. No wonder they gave him his own show.

But Whitehall is evidently only as good as his script, and this one stinks. First he does a bit of stand-up at Blaenavon Workmen's Hall; his "posho visits the provinces" schtick goes down well live, if not on-screen, with material about the Welshness of Doctor Who, in which he compares the tardis to a Welsh girl's vagina ("you wanna see something that's bigger on the inside?").

The real volumetric mystery here, however, is his weirdly bouffant hair - what product is he using? Anyway, we flit to a bizarre, pointless interlude in which Whitehall pretends to be a rugby coach (now in a blond wig which makes him look like Owen Wilson). The team, set up to appear stupid, just look nonplussed. Later, Whitehall goes and stays with a Valleys family - stuff on male voice choirs and cameos on Welsh soap Pobol y Cwm ensue. Hilarity does not.

For Whitehall's jokes fall into but two camps: unimaginative stereotyping of the Welsh, and studenty. (He will keep on about shotting Jagermeister or downing Smirnoff Ices, when clearly he's just swallowed his own publicity). He appears to be going for a kind of gap yah colonial tour round the wilds of Great Britain - anywhere outside the Home Counties - in which we're encouraged to laugh at the natives. I can't quite believe Whitehall's this dumb; presumably he'll soon be doing interviews featuring the phrase "regrettable career choice". Or maybe he really was a one-trick pony.

I quite like Jack Whitehall. The posh thing no longer irritates and he was great in Fresh Meat. But the stand-up-meets-chat-show-meets-hidden-camera format of Hit The Road Jack is woefully thin. I know Channel 4's overgrown teens have finally accepted their Russell Brand crush will remain forever unrequited and have now switched to Jack instead. But if they keep giving him guff like this I fear they'll end up having their hearts broken again.

In Hit the Road Jack, Jack Whitehall offers us a hybrid stand-up/chat-show/prank-sketch/national-tour format in which none of the components entirely works. If you like him you'll probably quite like the series too, though even if that's the case you might feel they could tighten up the candid-camera sections. If you can see the "dupe" trying not to crack up it's hard to feel they've been duped at all.

Hit the Road Jack is on Channel 4 but it feels more like BBC Three. Even by the standards of youth programming it's hyperactively hectic. The 'Jack' of the title is Jack Whitehall, a young comedian with the looks of a boy band cutie, and the show is... well, it isn't really any one type of show. It's just an excuse to have Whitehall on screen.

Each week, he'll visit a different part of Britain - not that we'll see much of whichever part it is, because most of the show takes place in a TV studio. Last night the studio was in Wales. He began with two minutes of jokes about the country; hurtled into a skit in which he supposedly tricked Welsh rugby players into thinking he was an "alternative rugby guru"; then an interview with Welsh actress Ruth Jones that lasted all of 90 seconds; a micro-feature about "how to fit in" with the Welsh (conclusion: join a male voice choir); 25 seconds' more chat with Jones; into the ad break with five, yes five, seconds of music from guest rapper Lethal Bizzle (not to worry, Bizzle fans: at the end of the show he was allowed to play for a whole two minutes)...

Whitehall himself is likeable and amusing. "To impress you guys I decided to learn the name of that Welsh railway station everyone goes on about. Ready? 'Car... diff... Cen... tral'." Insecurely, the camera kept cutting away to shots of the studio audience hooting and cheering. Message: "Look how much these people are enjoying themselves! This man must be good!"

He is, but it's a funny thing about audiences: the more hysterically the one in the studio raves, the less the one at home feels inclined to join them.

'This has been lush,' sounds very odd in a snooty English voice and Jack Whitehall played cultures clashing for all they were worth in Hit The Road Jack - a move not dissimilar from Sarah Millican and her working class Geordie jokes aimed at a traditionally middle class BBC Two audience that are currently going down well in her Television Programme.

His comedy road trip kicked off in Cardiff where he stayed with a local family and joined a local men's choir. They Welsh. He British. Nationality-based awkwardness obviously ensued, before Whitehall took on a cameo role in soap opera Pobol y Cwm and rounded up with a stand-up gig.

He shamelessly revelled in every boyo cliché in the book (token rugby coach in particular), but, playing on the posh chump charm of Fresh Meat's JP, Whitehall pulled it off.

It's rarely a good idea to base a series on a song title.

Especially, when the next line of that song goes, "and don't you come back no more".

In an instant, Jack Whitehall manages to erase all the comedy kudos he acquired from his role in Fresh Meat with this new series which finds him travelling around the UK, moving in with a local family to learn more about regional culture.

And if you think that sounds worryingly like what the comedians in ITV's disastrous stand-up contest Show Me The Funny had to do, you'd be dead right.

Tonight, he's at a working men's club in Cardiff, making jokes about Wales (really?), learning to sing with a male voice choir and trying to pass himself off as a rugby coach.

All this is bad enough, but any show that invites Ruth Jones on and doesn't let her be funny, is asking for a slap.

The very funny Jack Whitehall launches a fairly
funny show of his own. In the way of comedians' first solo TV outings, it's a little fiddly and over-engineered (see also Sarah Millican on BBC2) but cheerful and charming, too, like the man himself.

The idea is that Jack immerses himself in a different part of the UK each week, starting in Wales, where
he joins a male voice choir and gets a cameo in Pobol y Cwm. There are pranky bits (he poses as an alternative sports guru and tricks some rugby players into pretending to be animals) and a guest (Ruth Jones) and a bit of music and a bit of stand-up and yes, it's all a bit scattered and frantic, but good fun.

Frittering away much of the goodwill garnered by his fine turn in Fresh Meat, Jack Whitehall's country-trotting new show embodies the issues faced by TV commissioners in showcasing stand-ups. Stewart Lee aside, it's hard to think of a comedy vehicle that really works (although plenty deliver ratings). Hit The Road Jack is a noisy, chaotic blend of feeble sketches, passable stand-up, superficial chat and hackneyed Candid Camera-style stunts with a musical turn thrown in. The only thing missing is an identity. This opener sees Whitehall riffing on Welsh traits, bantering with Ruth Jones and cameoing in Welsh soap Pobol y Cwm. The laughs are few - over-indulgent studio audience excepted. He can come back, but only once more on the off-chance it's improved.

When Jack Whitehall hurtled on to the live stand-up scene a couple of years back, we found the hype never matched the talent. But it seems C4 knows just what to do with him: he was well cast as a posh boy with issues in the enjoyable Fresh Meat, and now it's fashioned a show that's a good outlet for his exuberance. It's a mixture of stand-up, pranks and chat, during which he immerses himself in different parts of Britain.