Inside Jack Whitehall’s new Settle Down tour that sees him target girlfriend Roxy Horner, his parents and footballer pal
FEW are safe from Jack Whitehall’s vicious wit.
Footballers Harry Kane and Jamie Redknapp, singing superstar Ed Sheeran and Prince Harry have all been cut down to size by the smiling assassin, not to mention his own family.
There is just one person who Jack admits wields any control over the content — his girlfriend of three years, Roxy Horner.
Everything from their sex life to Roxy’s type 1 diabetes diagnosis has been used in his routines.
But luckily for Jack, it turns out Roxy, 31, has a very good sense of humour.
He says: “Roxy definitely gets a veto. She can be a tough crowd for my brand of humour but, touch wood, thus far she has been very accepting of me doing routines about her private life on stage.
“It is a blessing she hasn’t said no to anything yet.
“Dating a comedian can be stressful because they go up on stage and tell a load of strangers all about your private life for the sake of comedy.
“She has been very patient with it all. Roxy has the patience of a saint.”
But Roxy has come off better than many of Jack’s targets.
Spilling the beans to The Sun ahead of his upcoming UK arena tour Settle Down, he admits his new routine takes no prisoners.
Jamie, who is Jack’s co-panellist on Sky TV celebrity sports quiz A League Of Their Own and promotes Skechers trainers, is one person who should maybe swerve the gigs, as Jack admits he tears his pal to bits.
Jack says: “Jamie travelled to Arizona to watch the Super Bowl, and my show was there at the same time and he came along.
“Afterwards he was so sweet and he said to me, ‘Jack, that was amazing. It was nice to have you up on stage not slagging me off for once’. But it was only because I had edited the show for the Americans, and no one knew who Jamie was.
“Now I am back in England and I am going to perform in Skechers just so I can do jokes at his expense.
“I wouldn’t want him thinking he’s getting a free ride. The moment I start this tour there are going to be a lot of Jamie jokes, and references to Skechers and footwear for the over-eighties.”
Jack’s mum Hilary, an actress, and TV producer dad Michael may also be ducking for cover as their son wheels out his new material.
He says: “My parents don’t get the privilege of a veto any more.
“They are relatively chilled out when they hear me badmouthing them on stage.
“After a show Mum sometimes will text me and say, ‘I don’t know if you should be telling that joke’. So there is a bit of a filter, the mother test.”
Jack first made his name on the comedy circuit while at Manchester University studying history of art, and dropped off his degree course after two terms to pursue his joke-telling future.
In 2008, he got his big break on TV, with the first of what would be many appearances on Channel 4 panel show 8 Out Of 10 Cats. And he never looked back.
Three years later, he had sold out London’s Hammersmith Apollo — and won a Guinness World Record for staging the “highest stand-up comedy gig in the world” when he performed for Comic Relief with Dara O Briain and Jon Richardson at 35,000ft on a British Airways jet.
By 2014, Jack had written and starred in his own BBC sitcom, Bad Education.
He has since landed roles in Hollywood movies including Jungle Cruise in 2021, alongside Emily Blunt, and upcoming computer-animated sci-fi adventure comedy Robots.
But Jack gets his biggest kick out of being on stage in front of a live audience, and from 2018 to 2021 hosted the Brit Awards.
Of his latest look, he tells The Sun: “I have grown out my hair and, in my head, I look like Kit Harington when he was Jon Snow in Game Of Thrones. It is a strong look.
“But last week someone heckled me and told me I looked like a Tesco Value Richard Hammond.
“Maybe it was Jeremy Clarkson, it was in Oxfordshire. But it crashed me back down to Earth.
“This is why I love going on stage in the UK, the audiences are great.
“In America they are whooping and cheering before you even open your mouth. I finished the US leg of my tour in the Palace Of Fine Arts in San Francisco and my first gig back in the UK was in Colchester in a leisure centre and there were tennis nets in my dressing room.
“I feel imposter syndrome in America. I love coming back to the UK.”
‘Dad’s a nuisance’
Jack’s previous three arena tours all sold out within hours and his last live show, 2019’s Jack Whitehall: Stood Up, was the biggest comedy show of that year, with a total of 450,000 fans turning out.
In the past he has been hit by complaints to watchdog Ofcom over TV gags about Little Mix, the Queen and Prince Philip. But he refuses to run scared of “cancel culture”. Jack says: “We live in more sensitive times and it’s a higher-stakes environment in the comedy landscape than when I first started.
“I don’t get too worked up about the fear of telling a joke which could get me cancelled. I feel the joke that might get me cancelled or get me into trouble is already out there — I told it years ago.
“In fact, I’ve had a load of routines which have got me in trouble before and caused a stir.
“Now I have matured enough as a comic to be more careful about what I say on stage.
“I have my dad who is out there in the world, and the reality is the joke which will get me in trouble is probably going to come out of his mouth.”
Jack’s close relationship with Michael, 82, saw the pair picked up by Netflix for their own TV series. Travels With My Father ran for five seasons until September 2021 and led to Jack and Michael travelling the world together.
But Jack says with a laugh: “I stopped doing Travels With My Father because my dad was becoming such a nuisance on tour at his age, it became very challenging. My dad is a human hand grenade.
“Fortunately he is not in charge of his own Twitter. My mum has it and types it out for him so there is a filter. There could be serious issues for my brand but my mum is there to make sure anything is caught out of the gate.”
Jack’s new show, which he says has passed both Roxy’s and his mother’s tests, begins in Brighton on June 13. Highlights will include Jack’s take on “adulting”, and him drawing back the curtain on life with Roxy as he comes to terms with turning 35 this July.
He admits: “I’m at that depress-ing point now where I feel like I wouldn’t get on Love Island.
“I always think I’m like them apart from the neck down — I am a very different body shape but think of them of a similar age.
“But I still haven’t got my driving licence, which feels like an impediment to being a proper grown-up.
“I’ve gone through all the excuses. I’ve said it’s for the environment, I said it’s because I live in London. Recently I said some are born to drive and some to be driven.
“I have trotted out all the excuses but no one fully believes. Everyone wishes they could drive. Roxy can drive, she keeps threatening to get a car and drive me around but I don’t think I feel safe. I feel emasculated.”
Jack’s tour will take in 15 dates across the UK including Bourne-mouth, Leeds, Glasgow, Cardiff and Manchester.
So how does he prepare for the slog, performing nearly every night for four weeks?
Jack says: “I have a lemon-and- herb Nando’s in my dressing room alone, then I pop a couple of Imodium so it can’t come back to haunt me on stage.
“I have an untrustworthy gut. It’s pretty lame compared to other rock ’n’ roll acts. I bet Beyonce doesn’t do that.”
- Tickets for Jack’s UK tour are on sale today from Ticketmaster and jackwhitehall.com.