Jack Whitehall

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.

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At just 23, Jack Whitehall has been a fixture on TV's comedy panel game circuit for years and his recent appearance in the hit student sitcom Fresh Meat has won him a new set of fans. Now Channel 4 gives him a show of his own for the first time - in which he tours the country, mingling with locals and getting unsuspecting families to put him up before his gigs. He starts tonight in South Wales, playing a cameo role in Welsh soap Pobol y Cwm and, in inspired disguise, taking on the training session of a rugby team. It's all good fun but the broad humour definitely makes it deserving of this post-watershed slot. With guests Ruth Jones and Lethal Bizzle.

Jack Whitehall's stock has risen exponentially recently, thanks largely to his impressively judged turn as JP in Fresh Meat. If only Hit The Road Jack were cut from such adventurous cloth. A tour with a difference, it begins with Whitehall's basically harmless but low-rent stand-up, before he is "embedded" in the local community with slightly more amusing consequences (he keeps a creditably straight face while posing as an Australian rugby guru in Wales). He's a vaguely charming Jack of all trades but ultimately doesn't excel at any, save the acting.

Wish I'd been at the recent NME Awards because it sounds like Jack Whitehall did a fine job as host. Introducing the Kaiser Chiefs' singer he said: "Here to present the award is Ricky Wilson, a man who can predict riots seven years in advance. Here he is clad exclusively in Foot Locker." This is his comedy roadshow, beginning in Cardiff.

We're big fans of Jack Whitehall here at Digital Spy and we're dying to see whether he can shine in his first big solo TV outing. It's a bit of a strange premise, to be honest, blending together character-based comedy with elements of chatshows and travel documentaries as Jack sets off on a comedy tour of the UK. The first episode sees him joining a male choir and coaching a rugby team in Wales, before having a sit down with Miss Gavin & Stacey herself, Ruth Jones.

Jack Whitehall replacing Georgie Thompson on ALOTO

Comic Jack Whitehall is replacing Georgie Thompson as a regular on Sky1 sports panel show A League Of Their Own.

How do you transfer stand-up comedians from stage to screen? I can't say it's a question which pre-occupies me, but surely you just stick them in Moss Bros' finest and wire up a microphone. After all, that worked for Frank Carson. Ah, but he was funny. Comics now aren't, or at least not funny-funny. And viewers these days demand more than just gags which, as Eamon Holmes (not a comedian) clumsily put it after Carson's funeral service, are every bit as rat-tat-tat as the gunfire which once echoed round Belfast's streets. Thus, for our more sophisticated tastes, we get The Sarah Millican Television Programme. Oh dear.

The title sequence of spinning TV sets ("I absolutely love telly," Millican will inform us) is itself a relic, though maybe this is irony (ha bloody ha). The canned laughter is too loud. There are interviews (the first one was stilted and went on too long) and there is acting. This should be covered by a warning, like strobe effects are, because apart from Jack Whitehall in Fresh Meat, comedians can't act. Millican was trying to pick up men in a bar after coaching from a sexpert and it was awful. The thing is, she's funny - and filthy. She should have just donned a dinner suit for some of the old rat-tat-tat.