Jack Whitehall has made himself a hostage to fortune, sharing his fatherhood plans in new show Settle Down and recording them for his latest Netflix special, months before the baby’s arrival. The 35-year-old comic admits that it was ‘depressing’ how quickly after his girlfriend Roxy Horner told him she was pregnant that he started thinking of the child in terms of material. 
‘It’s like a switch goes on in your head, it was pretty instant,’ he recalls. ‘As a comedian, it’s so hard to just feel anything in your life, the highs and lows. There have been moments where I’ve tried to catch myself and be like, “can you please experience this first scan like a human being and be present? Turn off your comedian brain for just half an hour?” But it’s such fertile subject matter.’
It was at the Edinburgh Fringe where Whitehall first performed stand-up in 2006, aged 17, as part of an ill-conceived sketch show called Comic Abuse. He later signed with his first management and his comedy became a family business after he shifted from joking about his father Michael in routines to inviting the characterful former showbusiness agent on stage, ‘where I tried to host a chatshow and he just derailed it’. 

It spawned the BBC series Backchat and long-running Netflix travelogue, Travels With My Father, which sent the Whitehalls globetrotting for four years and helped break the stand-up in America. Whitehall now enjoys a burgeoning Hollywood career, acting in family films like Jungle Cruise, Clifford The Big Red Dog and, more recently, sci-fi comedy Robots.
He acknowledges that the ‘nepo parent’ trend that himself, Romesh Ranganathan and Russell Howard kickstarted by putting their parents on screen is ‘kind of crazy. My parents were sat around doing nothing and my mum, in particular, is a frustrated performer, so it’s great they’ve got their podcast and might even be doing stage work together at some point. It’s a strange situation but I’m happy for them.’
Filming a three-generations Travels With My Father has already been mooted, though Whitehall reckons that’s probably ‘a bit further down the line’ for long-suffering, now 83-year-old Michael. ‘I might have to put in a little bit of groundwork to convince my girlfriend that our child could be onscreen at some point in the future too,’ adds the comic, who has started making programmes through his own company, Jackpot Productions, including the upcoming Netflix special shot last month at London’s O2 Arena.
He accepts that he’s got ‘to keep some stuff sacred, as hard as it can be because I’m so indiscreet. I’ve talked about so much of my life. And maybe our child should be shielded from some of that. I’m in danger of turning my family into a posh version of the Kardashians if I keep putting everyone in TV shows.’

The standout routine in Settle Down, which finds Whitehall fuming with incredulity, is his reaction to press coverage of his privileged alma mater, The Dragon School in Oxford, with the tabloids only mentioning him as a famous old boy when the institution is in disgrace. Still, the UK’s best-known posh comic, with the flourishing movie-star lifestyle, is mindful that many of his fans are struggling in a cost-of-living crisis.
‘No one wants to see a comedian gloating and rubbing any success in their face,’ he reflects. ‘I always try to make myself the butt of the joke and be as self-deprecating as I can. I’m very conscious of that.’ Not that he’s fully inhibited himself though, even if he has to slightly ‘recalibrate’ his humour on the US publicity trail. ‘I don't necessarily have the best filter in the world,’ he admits. ‘I remember the first time I did James Corden’s show, I told a really graphic sex story which completely stunk out the room. They’re a little more sensitive and I have to check myself. But I like the fact that I can save all that for the stand-up, be a bit more unshackled.’

Jack Whitehall: Settle Down, Edinburgh Playhouse, 20 & 21 August, 7.30pm.