Jack Whitehall: Learning Difficulties

Jack Whitehall is a man on top of his game. Fearlessly confident, Whitehall holds the audience in the palm of his hand, toying gently before delivering punchline after punchline. Middle-class comedy is a tough act to pull off: social-climbing parents and public school bullying can be dangerous territory with a tough crowd, but the Edinburgh audience holds no alarms. A packed house full of teenage girls – Whitehall’s most devoted audience, one suspects – hangs on every word of an energetic performance. Whitehall’s routines are grounded in the everyday – if the everyday is a mock-Tudor des res in East Sheen and an old school tie – and are lapped up by an audience desperate to adore him. Routines on schoolboy vampire envy, parental disappointment and the lonely life of the recorder player are never going to forge new comedy ground, but such a rooted routine plays perfectly to the crowd, who respond to his frenetic energy with hilarity. Critics have not always received Whitehall kindly, complaining of the forcedness and mock indignation of his material. But here’s the rub: they’re wrong. Whitehall may not offer sharp political satire; he may not push the boundaries of modern comedy. He may not shock with outlandish savagery; he may not throw a bone to tired old hacks bored of comedy and of life. What Whitehall is, though, is very, very funny – and one of the failsafe bets for an hour of sheer enjoyment.