It's time for Jack Whitehall to Settle Down as he prepares to become a father and returns to Edinburgh

With parenthood on the way, the comedian returns to the Edinburgh Fringe where his career began

Jack Whitehall brings his new live standup show, Settle Down, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Pic: Contributed

I’ve just asked the award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and writer Jack Whitehall to describe his comedy as he prepares to bring his latest live show, Settle Down, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. After deafening silence then a series of increasingly desperate ums and you’ve stumped mes as he drowns in a whirlpool of uncertainty with life-saving adjectives tantalisingly out of reach, he grasps at ‘jolly?’

“I don’t want to say anything,” he says, “because my propensity is to undersell it but then again I don’t know whether I necessarily want to do that because my whole life is about getting a good quote from The Scotsman so you can stick it on a poster. This could be a roundabout way of creating one, even if it’s come from my own mouth. That would negate the need for Kate Copstick to like it. I could just say some really lovely things about my stuff and then quote myself.”

Go on then, I invite him. Can he say the kind of thing he’d like to see about himself in The Scotsman? And because Whitehall loves the challenge of in-the-moment, especially if it’s not to be taken seriously, he has a go:

Jack Whitehall performing Settle Down. Pic: Andrew Cooper

“Hilarious, spectacular, jaw dropping, era-defining, a stand up tour de force.“ He laughs.

“But I would NEVER say that about myself,” he says immediately, “were it not that I was just trying to get a good quote out of an interview in The Scotsman. I want that on record as well. This is NOT what I think, but I will say this because it would look great on a poster.”

What Edinburgh and The Scotsman thinks matters to Whitehall because The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is where the 35-year-old’s career took off back in 2007 and it’s where he’s looking forward to returning on his biggest ever stand up tour to date. His third sell out arena tour across the UK, including three nights at the O2, is a far cry from the small venues in which he started.

“Yeah, lots of things have changed since 2007,” he says. “I was doing a sketch show when I first came up in 2006 and thought that would be my path but I saw stand up for the first time and thought ‘wow this is amazing!’ so I set my sights on becoming a stand up. The following year I was at The Pleasance Comedy Reserve with Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso, Apple TV) who has won two Emmys, and we were staying in some tiny little bedsit and performing at 11 o’clock at night to 30 people. I had the most wonderful experience. I’m very excited to be coming back and to be doing my show there.”

Jack Whitehall and his partner Roxy Horner. Pic: Contributed

This time round he’s filling the 3,000 plus seater Edinburgh Playhouse with Settle Down. Can he tell us what it’s about?

“The show is about where I’m at in my life and quite a lot of life happened in the four years since I last toured. I met my partner, we moved in together, got a dog and now we’re having a baby so it’s about big things happening in my life and obviously a great source of material. It’s about me reluctantly settling down and dragging my heels a bit and my failing attempts at becoming a fully fledged adult.”

Since his award-winning Fringe 2007 appearance his career has gone stratospheric and he’s made the switch from stand up to screen with numerous TV and film appearances. His most recent see him starring alongside Shailene Woodley in Robots, a romcom directed by Academy Award nominee Ant Hines and as ‘Shady Best Man’ in the second season of the Apple TV+ hit comedy series, The Afterparty opposite Tiffany Haddish, streaming now, while hit travelogue, Travels with My Father (Netflix) clocked up five seasons and Bad Education (BBC), on which he’s executive producer is on its fourth series.

Along with the career success, he has a grown up personal life to match, with a £17.5 million, five-bedroom home in Notting Hill that he shares with model partner Roxy Horner, cockapoo Coco and he is about to become a father. Already sounding way more assured than when we spoke back in 2017 ahead of the release of Decline & Fall, yet still open and engaging, does Whitehall think he has settled down?

Jack Whitehall's Settle Down is his third sell out live stadium tour. Pic: Andrew Cooper

“Yeah, I mean… yeah, def… yeah… pretty settled… I mean I still… you know…”

He has a second attempt.

2017 Jack Whitehall interview

“There are elements of my character that are possibly in arrested development and I definitely still have a kind of childish streak and that’s something I talk about. It’s probably the last show I can get away with a lot of routines and jokes showing off about lame drunken high jinks and idiotic mishaps - I feel like they’re going to become quite tragic quite soon as I hit the wrong end of 35. This feels like the last show where I can get that stuff out of my system.

Jack Whitehall with his parents Michael and Hilary at the premier for Ron's Gone Wrong at the BFI London Film Festival at The Royal Festival Hall in 2021. Pic: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

“I’m well aware I’m not the finished article and rough around the edges and have a lot to learn. I don’t know whether the arrival of the baby will miraculously change it, maybe not. I suspect I will have a lot of work to do on myself. But yeah, I’m settled down, with a few asterisks.”

With the baby due at the beginning of September it will be born while Whitehall is still touring.

“There’s a gap and then a couple of shows after, and I can’t speak to what my mental head space will be at any of those. I’ll either be exhausted or a blubbering mess, or maybe I’ll be ecstatic to be out of the house. I have no idea, but either way those shows could be a bit of a car crash. I’m coming to Aberdeen in October,” he says and laughs.

“Maybe I’ll have the baby with me. I did a film called Mother’s Day where I played this comedian who had a newborn baby and had to go round to this stage mum’s house and she taught me how to change a nappy on one of her babies. I did this whole scene where I was changing a nappy on stage doing stand up, then it ended up being cut but here we are, eight years later and maybe it will come into its own, that skill set I acquired. I have previous.”

Because Whitehall’s comedy is about his life, Settle Down is updated as he goes, and he enjoys being able to thread in new material along the way.

“I started doing the shows in December so it’s had to evolve because Roxy became pregnant in January and I started adding material. I’ve enjoyed reflecting and talking about this impending arrival and sharing that with an audience, all of my excitement, anxieties. I love doing stand up because it’s great to have this ability to think of something that afternoon then go up on stage and talk about it in front of an audience. I’m kind of using it as therapy,” he laughs.

Jack Whitehall as Alfie Wickers in the BBC comedy Bad Education. Pic: Contributed

The immediacy of stand up, as opposed to film and TV acting, never gets tired for Whitehall but is that not the most nerve-wracking part of performing live?

“Yeah, but I think it’s important to do that because otherwise when you’re doing a long tour you can fall into it being a little bit like muscle memory and you never want it to turn into you being on autopilot. It’s important to keep it fresh and change things up and keep it evolving.”

Is he nervous about becoming a father?

“Yeah, quite nervous, but it’s more excitement I think. Obviously a little bit of apprehension and wanting to get it right and being there for my partner and being the best dad I can. You know she’s (Roxy) amazing and she’ll be a fantastic mum, and I’ve got a good support system with my family - my mum was originally an actress then gave it up when she had a family and was a doula for six years when I was growing up. I used to go and help. She’s like the cheat code’s mum to having a kid and is great with my niece, so I’m sure we’ll be calling upon her at some point.”

In what capacity did Whitehall help when he went with his mum to visit clients?

“When I say ‘helped’, I think I was probably just there playing on a Gameboy or something in the background, just grunting. I was a teenager so was probably very useless. My sister was probably much more helpful, and my younger brother, but at that point I was just a grunting slob.”

One of Whitehall’s must-do’s as he approaches fatherhood is learning to drive. Has he accomplished this yet?

“I’ve not learnt to drive,” he admits. “But as I speak to you today there is in my hallway, quite passively aggressively placed right next to the front door, a car seat for a car that I don’t own and can’t drive, so that’s a constant reminder that I really need to get going and learn.“

And if not?

“My mum will be out there in the Volvo.”

What kind of dad does he think he’ll be - fun dad, strict dad, or more like his own dryer than a martini with only the slightest hint of vermouth dad?

“I always thought I’d be like my dad but then I thought I would probably have a kid when I was much older and I could be a slightly intimidating, deadpan, standoffish father figure like him. But maybe now I’ve got on with it a bit quicker I can be a young dad, embarrassing, try and be young and cool and their best friend and cracking jokes, wanting to go to music festivals with them, maybe I’ll be that.”

An embarrassing, say-the-wrong-thing kind of dad?

“Yeah, definitely saying the wrong thing. I can see that happening already. It’s terrifying. I can feel dad jokes creeping into my set. There’s two punch lines that definitely get a groan rather than a laugh but I haven’t cut them because I enjoy eliciting that reaction. I like to cringe them out. Maybe that’s part of this hideous transition, that I will cease to want to make people laugh and will just want to embarrass them and make them groan.”

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While his dad hasn’t been forthcoming with any advice on fatherhood so far he did reveal a nurturing side towards Winston, the eerie mannequin that fans of Travels With My Father saw him adopt in Bangkok.

“Yeah, there’s already been a conversation about that,” says Whitehall. My parents said “do you want any of Winston’s clothes, because they put that creepy doll in a load of outfits, which is weird. I said ‘have you bought the doll outfits?’ and my mum went ‘no, they’re your old clothes’, so now I’ve been offered my own hand-me-downs off the weird doll. I said ‘you know what, I can buy some clothes for my child rather than taking them off your Chucky doll’. I will be keeping my child as far away from that doll as possible.”

A recurring theme in Whitehall’s stand up, is himself and his failings, self-deprecation being something he enjoys.

“You’re a comedian on stage and have a degree of status because of that dynamic with an audience so I like to pick that apart and drive myself down as much as possible, self-flagellating, trying to tell as many stories as possible where I’m the butt of the joke. And I like there being an element of me being really indiscreet with an audience as well. I think that’s a great way of forming a connection, exposing yourself to them, giving them an insight into your innermost thoughts and life.”

Because the joke’s on Whitehall himself, it gives his humour an upbeat quality where the audience don’t feel they’re going to be a target.

“I try to make sure it doesn‘t feel like I’m punching down, and even if I do have the odd potshot here and there, I’m always bringing it back to me and making sure it feels even handed. I guess the only people who’ve probably caught quite a lot of flack in my shows are my family. Historically it’s probably been my dad, and in this show I talk a lot about my relationship with my girlfriend and my dog, so that’s been a little bit of a learning curve for us. It’s just the nature of what it’s like to be going out with a stand up comedian and all that that entails, how she can’t say anything around me now for it not to end up on stage eventually at some point. I think she’s been very patient and understanding of my indiscreet nature.”

Whitehall’s parents are used to featuring in Whitehall’s shows and now Michael and Hilary have a Festival show of their own, bringing their podcast The Wittering Whitehalls live to Prestonfield (Saturday 19 August), discussing subjects and problems sent in by the audience, as well as theatrical anecdotes from Michael's 50 years in showbusiness.

“It’s hilarious,” says Whitehall of their Fringe appearance. “I didn’t even know they were going up to Edinburgh then all of a sudden I see some post online. It’s Christopher Biggins, them and Cliff Richard,” he laughs. “What a bill, it’s so nuts.

“To be fair, the whole thing with my dad started in Edinburgh because I did two shows where I talked about him then one of my friends said why don’t you get him on stage with you so we did two shows at The Pleasance in the Cabaret Bar in the Nicholas Parsons slot when he had nights off. I interviewed people doing shows at the Fringe and my dad sat there slagging off my interview technique and that ended up becoming Backchat because there was someone from the BBC in the audience who thought this would be great on TV. We’d literally only done it as a nice excuse to get up to the Fringe for a weekend and it ended up being three series, then Netflix saw it and we got to travel around the world, so the whole thing came from Edinburgh. So while this is being billed by my mum and dad as they’re just popping up to the Fringe to do a night for Christopher Biggins, god knows where that’s going to end up. I’m sure they’ll probably be trying to flog it round town and they’ll be on Netflix next - without me.”

Back in Edinburgh again, the comedian has come full circle, so what would he say to the 2007 version of Jack Whitehall?

“My specific Festival advice would be to pace yourself. It’s a marathon not a sprint. I remember coming back from Edinburgh just absolutely broken every year, emotionally and physically.

And I’d say, everything you say and everything you do is there for ever, especially in the digital age. I would think about what I was saying a lot more and consider my standup and outlook on the world more. Back then I would say anything for a laugh and now I engage more of a filter. Some of my early television work I look back on and think oh god, that’s a bit cringe, so I would say that.

He laughs. “Now I’ll probably go and say something awful on stage and think, oh god, I didn’t learn that lesson did I?”

Jack Whitehall Settle Down, Edinburgh Playhouse, August 20 (3pm and 7.30pm) and 21 (7.30pm). Aberdeen’s P&J Arena on 8 October 2023.

www.ticketmaster.co.uk/jack-whitehall, tickets.edfringe.com, www.pandjlive.com, Jackwhitehall.com