Gigglebox Weekly #43 – Hit the Road Jack

Gigglebox Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week saw a new comedy show starring Jack Whitehall on Channel 4. The problem is that it’s a bit hard to categorise it.

Hit the Road Jack seems to be a hodge podge of all kinds of programmes. The first aspect of it is that each episode is presented from a different place, the first being Wales. So you could say it is like either Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow or Mark Steel’s in Town.

However, it isn’t just stand-up. There are interviews, music, footage of him visiting and staying with local people, and hidden camera stunts in which he plays various characters in disguise. So you could be argued that it’s actually a variety show.

In the end, the show is full of odds and ends that don’t seem to gel all that well. There were bits I liked, like his characters fooling the locals; a new-age Australian rugby coach and a female royal expert looking to find a Welsh Prince and Princess of Wales. I thought that he looked very convincing as his characters, and I thought they were funny, too.

On the down side, his interview skills appear to be somewhat lacking. During the show he interviewed Ruth Jones, but he seemed to be spending much of his time talking about himself. Also, his introduction of Jones was inaccurate. Whitehall called her, “the undisputed queen of comedy,” which is wrong, because according to the British Comedy Awards, the queen of comedy is Sarah Millican at the time of writing!

The show has its moments, but it isn’t perfect. It needs some tightening up.