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Jack Whitehall: Settle Down (2024)

Posted: 02/03/24 23:50
by bunniefuu
[audience cheering]

[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,

please welcome to the stage

- Mr. Jack Whitehall!

- [audience cheering and applauding]

We having a drink this evening, London?

- [audience cheering]

- Yeah!

On the bevvies!

I'm, uh...

I'm actually on the waters this evening.

Um, I don't wanna start...

No, I don't wanna start proceedings off

on a bum note,

but I had a situation recently.

I don't wanna say intervention.

That's a strong word.

But no, basically,

some of my friends took me aside

and said they were worried

I drink too much.

I was like, "Shit, I'm gonna have

to do something about that."

And I am proud to say,

that as of last week,

I have just celebrated six months

of not seeing them.

[audience laughing]

- Twelve steps away from those losers!

- [audience cheering]

[audience laughing]

I read an article recently...

[laughs]

Why do I say that I read an article?

I saw a TikTok.

[audience laughing]

And the TikTok said that red wine actually

has quite a lot of health benefits.

- So, yeah.

- [man cheers]

[Jack laughs]

That was definitely an alcoholic,

not a doctor, cheering in the back there!

[audience laughs]

To be fair, that is when you know

that you drink too much,

is when you've got a health benefit

for your alcoholic beverage of choice.

I think, over the years,

I may have collected one

for every drink. [chuckles]

Let's put it to the test tonight, right?

Shout out some

of your favorite alcoholic beverages.

I'll try to give you

health benefits for them.

[audience shouting]

Okay, vodka in low amounts

can lower your cholesterol.

Okay, white wine has ellagic acid in it,

which is good for your circulation.

[man] Jgerbomb!

Uh, Jgerbombs, uh, keep you alert

if you're driving late at night.

[audience laughing]

I'll take one more.

Stella? "f*cking Stella!" [laughs]

In his string vest, aye.

Uh, um, I'll take you through the beers.

I heard Guinness over there as well.

Stella is a lager which has riboflavin,

which is good

for the production of red blood cells.

You said Guinness,

which is a stout, which has iron in it,

which helps with your immune system.

And craft IPAs help you tell

which one of your friends is a bell end.

[audience laughing]

That's the big trend these days, isn't it?

All of this non-alcoholic booze

you see everywhere.

I'll tell you what. It's gone too far.

The other day, I saw for sale

a bottle of non-alcoholic sambuca.

[audience laughs]

Who the f*ck

is buying non-alcoholic sambuca?

Newsflash,

no one in the history of the world

has ever ordered a sambuca

when they haven't been

completely shit-faced.

[audience laughs]

No one is drinking 'buca

for its wonderful flavor profile.

It's not a beverage. It's a forfeit.

It's the most minging drink in existence.

It tastes like Bertie Bassett's ball sack.

[audience laughing]

It's so gross,

it's only serving suggestion is "on fire."

There is no other drink on the market

that they do that with.

"Oh, sommelier, can I get a bottle

of the 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon, please?"

"Oh, no, don't decant it. Just rack it up,

chuck in a couple of coffee beans,

and torch the fucker."

Sambuca is so gross

that you could go on a night out,

you could get so annihilated

that you end up

picking a fight with a revolving door,

getting chucked out of a nightclub

for defecating into a lady's handbag,

and then w*nk*ng off a tramp

behind a wheelie bin.

You would still wake up

the following morning

and the thing you most regret

from the night before

is that you drank sambuca.

[audience laughing]

It's crazy.

We've got non-alcoholic booze now.

We've got Beyond Meat.

Vaping.

They are taking away our vices.

I called my drug dealer the other day.

He offered me something called

I Can't Believe It's Not Cocaine!

[audience laughing]

I do try, as I get a little bit older,

I try to interrogate

my relationship with alcohol a bit more.

I genuinely think I drink as a crutch,

'cause I think

I get quite bad social anxiety.

Which people are surprised to hear,

'cause I do this for a living.

But that's why I love a whiskey.

Whiskey is my drink.

It's my go-to because what whiskey does

is it just tweaks my internal monologue.

That little voice in your head.

'Cause if I walk into a room sober,

the voice in my head

is like a cross between

my dad and Severus Snape.

[audience laughs]

I walk into a room sober, it's like...

[sternly] "Nobody in this room likes you."

[audience laughs]

"Look how disappointed they are

that you didn't bring

your daddy with you."

[audience laughs]

"Most of these cheapskates

probably don't even know who you are

now that Netflix have clamped down

on password sharing."

[audience laughs]

"They're all looking over

at your ridiculous new haircut."

"You thought by growing it out,

you'd look like Kit Harington

from Game of Thrones."

"And instead you've wound up looking like

a Tesco Value Richard Hammond."

[audience laughing]

That got far too much laughter

this evening.

[audience laughing]

I have a whiskey, right,

one scotch inside me,

it's like that voice

miraculously transforms

into a sort of Scottish hype man.

One whiskey down, it's like,

"Oy, oy, Jacky boy!"

"Of course you can f*cking breakdance!"

"I don't give a shite

if it's your grandmother's funeral!"

[audience laughing]

I mean, to be fair, that's what I'm like

after the Scottish whiskeys.

If I've had a Japanese whiskey,

it sounds like this.

Actually, I'm not gonna do

that one tonight. I...

[audience laughing]

[Jack giggles]

I also, of course, blame

my social inadequacies on my upbringing.

As many of you know,

I was sent to a boarding school age ten,

because my parents

were financially well-off

but emotionally bankrupt.

[audience laughing]

I know, obviously. Check my privilege.

I know going to a school like that

is a ridiculously unfair leg up in life.

If you needed any more proof that the arts

are far too polluted with toff actors,

look no further than my school.

Bloody everyone went there, all right?

Emma Watson went there.

Robert Pattinson went there.

Yeah, it was Hogwarts.

I went to Hogwarts. I, uh...

Tom Hiddleston went there as well.

And what this means is that

whenever they write about this school

in newspapers and magazines

and articles and alike,

they always get name-checked,

and I am nowhere near it.

It's like I am

the school's dirty little secret.

Just swept underneath the rug.

[audience laughing]

Now, obviously, I have a very fragile ego,

and I had to go check the school's website

to see if I'm on the list

of famous former pupils.

I'm there, but you've got to scroll down

for about half an hour.

I'm right down the bottom.

What the f*ck do you call this?

[audience laughing]

I'm underneath a rower!

A f*cking rower!

And yes, he won a gold medal,

but he was in a boat

where there was eight of them.

An eighth of a gold medal?

I've played the O2 Arena, b*tch!

[audience cheering and applauding]

[Jack chuckles]

What's funny is that bit is

so much easier to get on board with

when I leave out the detail

that he was a Paralympian. [chuckles]

- [audience laughs]

- No. No, too late.

Too late. You've laughed at it now.

Not nice. Shame on you, London.

Laughing at the one-armed rower. Not nice.

[audience laughing]

I made that last bit...

He's not a one-armed rower.

That is not factually accurate. [laughs]

A one-armed rower,

that wouldn't work, would it?

The boat would just go in a circle.

Stop it. No.

[audience laughing]

The point that I wanted to make is this.

This is something that I've talked about,

this slight to my wafer-thin ego.

I have complained about the fact

that my school have no pride in me

on podcasts, radio interviews, television.

I've really put it out there

into the world.

Now, the moral of the story is this.

Be very careful what you wish for.

Six months ago,

there was a story about my school.

It was about a teacher

that had been arrested

because they had found

indecent images on his laptop.

Newspaper headline,

"Pervert teacher arrested

at Jack Whitehall's former school."

[audience laughing]

Where is Emma Watson now?

[audience laughing]

This guy wasn't even a teacher

when I was there.

They had a picture of me in the article.

Scroll down

and there's Professor Noncey-Bollocks,

and me grinning next to him

like I was his muse. [giggles]

What the f*ck is that?

[audience laughing]

Don't use that picture as well.

That is the worst photo

that's ever been taken of me.

That photo is so unattractive,

if they had found that

on the teacher's laptop,

he probably would've got away with it.

[audience laughing]

And they really felt the need as well

to do me dirty in the caption. Yeah.

Really. They felt it was necessary

to point out that of these two images,

the depraved pervert

was the one on the left.

[audience laughing]

Outrageous.

[audience laughing]

The weirdest reaction to this story,

hands down, was my mother's. Okay?

I saw my mum about a week

after this article had been printed.

Went to her house, she's in the kitchen,

big shit-eating grin on her face.

She was like,

"I saw you in the newspaper."

I was like, "Did you read the article?"

"All publicity is good publicity."

[audience laughs]

"I don't think that holds up

in this context."

"And, just to be clear, you know,

he did not... touch me up."

Do you know what she said? "Oh, darling,

I wouldn't take it to heart."

"You probably just weren't his type."

What?!

[audience laughing]

This was the final kick in the bollocks.

The final kick in the bollocks came

when I read the main body of the article,

which I've brought to share with you.

I'm over it.

I just thought I would share this detail.

I took it down off my mum's fridge,

and I'm gonna read you this short extract.

Now bearing in mind

I've already got issues with my billing

when they write about this school,

have a little listen to this

and see why it may have irked me.

'Cause I wasn't

the only famous former pupil

that they decided to debut

in this article.

Listen now,

'cause it's subtle, mind. Ready?

"Criminal proceedings have been

brought against David Chambers,

a teacher at one of Britain's

most exclusive private schools,

attended by famous former pupils

such as Jack Whitehall

and Ghislaine Maxwell."

[surprised laughter]

We do not come as a pair!

What on earth

was this journalist thinking?

"I'm gonna write an article

about a pedophile teacher today."

"I wonder who to name-check.

How about a convicted human trafficker

and the star of Clifford the Big Red Dog?"

[audience roaring with laughter]

Don't put those pictures

next to each other in an article as well.

For God's sake, it makes it look like

I'm leading Clifford out of the courtroom

after he's given evidence.

- [audience laughing]

- Naughty dog.

I feel like we've bonded now.

We've formed a connection.

I think now you're ready

for some of the hard-hitting material.

This is a serious point that I wanna make.

Is it just me...

[audience laughs]

Is it just me, or have those

I-am-not-a-robot tests

started getting harder?

[audience laughing]

This isn't the serious bit yet.

This is just one last thing

I have to get off my chest.

What the f*ck are they playing at?

I have found bicycles

tucked away on roof racks,

cars parked behind walls.

The other day, I shit you not,

I was looking for the boats.

One of them was up a f*cking tree!

[audience laughing]

Has anyone else had that moment recently

where you're doing

the I-am-not-a-robot test,

you're on your own in your bedroom

in front of your laptop,

and you have failed

the I-am-not-a-robot test so many times

that you have that moment

where you stop and you go, "f*ck."

- "Maybe I am a robot"?

- [audience laughing]

"Maybe this is how robots realize

that they're robots."

"'Cause they just can't work out

whether a traffic light

consists of the box of lights

or the post that it's on as well."

[audience laughing]

"I'm having an existential crisis here!"

"I haven't been able to spot

ten traffic lights in a row."

"I'm either a robot or a cyclist."

[audience laughing]

[applause]

I just get so bored

with, like, cybersecurity.

Oh my God. I f*ck around now with the bank

when they take me through security.

"Hello, sir. Gonna take you

through security today."

"First up, what is

your mother's maiden name?"

"Also Whitehall.

We like to keep the bloodline pure."

[audience laughing]

[Jack laughing]

Or my favorite one,

"Where did you meet your spouse?"

And my bank legally

has to accept the answer.

"Just now, sweet cheeks."

[audience laughing]

My girlfriend got annoyed at me recently

because she saw in my phone that I have

her number saved as her full name.

She was like, "That's weird.

We've been going out for three years,

and I'm saved as my full name?"

"I am your girlfriend,

not a business associate."

"I should be saved

as some cute little nickname."

So I was like, "Okay, fine."

I've changed it. She is now saved

as a cute little nickname.

[audience laughs]

Shall I tell you what it is?

It is a bit cheesy.

Now don't judge, okay?

She's now saved as

"One-night stand that never left."

[audience laughing]

It's all right.

I'm allowed to make that joke. Know why?

Because what she had me saved as

in her phone, hundred times worse, okay?

We'd been going out for six months,

six months into our relationship,

and I saw on my girlfriend's phone

that my number was saved as "Jack,"

and then in brackets, "London."

What the f*ck?

[audience laughing]

"I know a lot of Jacks."

"How many bloody Jacks?"

She's the tech-savvy one

in our relationship.

She's got an app for everything.

She's got the Flo app, ladies.

Know about the Flo app?

[women and Jack cheering]

Sisters!

I... [chuckles] Dunno what that was.

No, the point is, the Flo app

is a really clever bit of kit.

But there is one oversight with it,

and that is

that there is not a feature on it

where you can sync it up

to your partner's phone.

She's ahead of me here.

That would be

an absolute bloody game-changer.

I'm not saying that I need

all of the nitty-gritty details,

but how incredible would it be

if the Flo app could just

ping a little alert to my phone

to warn me of the three days each month

when I should shut the f*ck up?

[audience laughing]

[Jack chuckles]

[audience cheering and applauding]

[Jack chuckles]

[Jack laughs]

She warned me in advance.

When we first started going out, she went,

"I need to let you know in advance,

I get really bad PMS."

"Like, really bad.

Like, five or six times a month."

I was like, "I'm not a doctor, but I think

that might be something else. I..."

[chuckles] Anyway, it turned out

it actually was something else,

because all this time

she had undiagnosed diabetes,

and that was the cause of this.

Do we have any diabetics in this evening?

- [scattered cheering]

- Whoo! Yeah, whoo! Yay!

Wave your insulin pens in the air

like you just don't care!

Don't do that! That's a very important

bit of kit. [chuckles]

Yeah, so she is a member

of the diabetic community,

and, actually, weirdly, bizarrely,

it was the night

that I was hosting the BRIT Awards

at the O2 Arena,

and this is where she got it.

Not got it. [laughs]

[audience laughing]

She didn't "get it"

'cause it's not contagious.

Bitten by another diabetic

that mistook her

for a life-size Jelly Baby. No.

- I... [laughs]

- [audience laughing]

No, the night of the BRITs,

we found out, um, that she had diabetes

because she had something called

a diabetic hyper, and she passed out.

She fainted, uh, halfway through

Harry Styles's performance.

[scattered cheering]

Yes, I am aware.

That is quite coincidental timing.

Don't worry, there were

a few raised eyebrows, not least from me.

This paramedic backstage

trying to resuscitate her.

"Oh my God, her blood sugar levels

are spiking dangerously."

I was like, "Are we sure this isn't just

a 'Watermelon Sugar' high? Because..."

[audience laughing]

To be honest, I was experiencing

quite a lot of the symptoms

of a diabetic hyper

when I was watching

Harry Styles perform as well.

Dizziness, shortness of breath.

Erect... Not erection, that's not one.

[audience laughing]

No, but anyway, yeah. So she ended up

being put into an ambulance

and, uh, we got taken off to A&E,

which certainly made

for a different vibe of after-party

to what I was used to.

Year before, I'd been hobnobbing

with Stormzy and Rag'n'Bone Man.

Nice to see you again, by the way. I, uh...

[Jack and audience laughing]

You blanked me earlier. I couldn't...

It was... great.

Anyway, no, I... [laughs]

So, yes, I was having an after-party

the year before with them.

This time round, I was in a hospital,

my girlfriend stricken to a bed

with tubes coming out of her arms,

and me in the waiting room,

genuinely worrying that I might never

see the love of my life again.

- [audience] Aw.

- Thank you.

No, at that point, we had no idea

when Harry would be back in the UK.

[audience laughing]

[Jack chuckling]

I gotta say, this diabetes diagnosis,

it was a real shock.

My girlfriend wouldn't

strike you as a diabetic.

So you can picture her in your mind's eye,

I will begrudgingly give you

this piece information about her.

Um, before she dated me,

she was linked to the actor, quite old,

you would've seen him in some stuff.

Uh, bit of a tree hugger.

Leonardo DiCaprio.

- Uh...

- [audience laughs]

Yeah. Leonardo Di-f*cking-Caprio.

That is a great act to have to follow.

Do you know how depressing that is?

Mainly depressing knowing that the only

reason your girlfriend is with you

is because she turned 26.

[audience laughing]

"Ticktock, off you pop."

"Ooh, come here.

This Jack will never let go."

- I, uh... [chuckles]

- [audience laughing]

I mean, also depressing 'cause I'll never

be able to watch his films ever again.

I used to love his movies.

I can't watch them now.

All I can think about is them.

Yeah. The Departed, Gangs of New York.

Who am I kidding? Titanic.

I can't watch Titanic anymore.

It gets to the end,

and I'm cheering on the iceberg.

I'm like, "Go on, Rose!

Dunk him! Dunk him!"

[audience laughing]

And obviously, I know it's worse for her,

you know?

She's had to trade in

the Wolf of Wall Street

for the Labradoodle of London.

[audience laughing]

She has been amazing though

with her diabetes diagnosis. Honestly.

She's really tried to own it,

my girlfriend.

She tries to talk about it a lot,

educate people, raise awareness.

She does these tutorials on her Instagram,

which are great.

She only f*cked up once, right,

and it was big f*ck-up.

She was doing a tutorial

about insulin injections,

on Instagram, in the public domain,

that ended with my girlfriend

using the phrase,

"At the end of the day,

it's just a tiny prick."

[audience laughs]

"And I'm so used to it now,

I can barely feel it go in."

[audience laughing]

I know those are the exact words

that she used,

'cause that ten-second clip ended up

in every single one of my group chats,

including the family WhatsApp group.

It's how I discovered my dad knows

how to use both the magnifying glass

and the aubergine emoji.

[audience laughing]

[scattered applause]

Ha-f*cking-ha.

[audience laughing]

That is the main department in which

it affects your relationship, diabetes.

It means your pancreas

doesn't produce enough insulin,

so you have to very carefully monitor

your blood sugar levels.

And if you do any strenuous exercise,

they can dip very dangerously low.

Now what that translates to in real life

is that I can now tell exactly

how good of a performance I've put in

in the bedroom

by what my girlfriend

is having to snack on afterwards.

- [audience laughs]

- [Jack chuckles]

If I roll over after sex

and she's tucking in

to an entire novelty Toblerone,

I'm like, "Well played.

Bravo, Jack. Nice work."

[audience laughs]

If I roll over and she's popping in

a single Skittle,

I'm like,

"Okay, could try harder next time."

[audience laughing]

She puts up with so much, bless her.

I asked her,

"We've been going out for three years."

"You can tell me honestly,

like, when we first started dating,

were there any red flags?"

She went, "Honestly,

there weren't any red flags."

I was like,

"Oh my God, that's so cute." [chuckles]

She went, "There were

quite a lot of rainbow flags."

[audience laughing]

I was like, "Oh my God."

I nearly spilled my mimosa.

I couldn't believe it.

"You have just ruined

this bottomless brunch."

[audience laughing]

To be fair, I do get that quite a lot.

Maybe in America...

When I was living in America last year,

the amount of times Americans would say,

[American accent] "Jack, we couldn't

work out whether you were British or gay."

[audience laughing]

I know. I was like, just 'cause

I hold out a little pinky finger

whilst I'm sucking a cock? I...

[audience laughing]

Another thing I've realized

is we have completely different tastes.

Which I don't think is unhealthy

in a relationship.

Some people think that's true love,

when you love all the same things

and finish off each other's sentences.

Is it? f*ck.

[audience laughs]

True love is when you love them

in spite of detesting

everything they're passionate about.

[audience laughing]

We can't agree on anything.

A comedian, television shows. Oh my God.

My girlfriend loves that show

where they follow the dating lives

of people with learning difficulties.

Love Island. Love Island.

[audience laughing]

- [audience cheering and applauding]

- [Jack laughs]

The other shows my missus loves.

Other ladies will be into these as well.

She mainly likes watching them

very late at night.

Normally, if we're in bed,

having a little cuddle, a little spoon.

"Ooh, what shall we put on Netflix

as we doze off in each other's arms?"

"Ooh, what about this?

The Connecticut Cannibal."

What is it with you ladies

watching true crime

right before you go to bed?

And then having the temerity to wake up

the following morning and be like,

"Oh my God,

I had such bad nightmares last night."

I wonder why!

You literally fell asleep

to a documentary about a serial k*ller

that targets specifically diabetic women.

[audience laughing]

I can't watch anything with my missus

because of the questions.

I've never experienced anything like it

in my entire life.

There are 110-year-old women

in severe cognitive decline

that would ask less questions

than my girlfriend

when watching a television show.

She needs a "previously on..."

at the beginning of every scene.

She's like, "Who's he?

Wait, sorry, what's his name again?"

"Is he a goodie or a baddie?

Why has he just said that to him?"

[yells] "Why don't we listen

and maybe we'll find out?"

"That's how a scene works!"

"At the beginning of it, there will be

some things that we don't know."

"And by the end of it,

we will have learned some more things."

"These are the basic principles

of storytelling."

"But we won't learn anything if we're

talking over all of the dialogue."

"So how about from now on we ask all

of our questions with our inside voices?"

[audience laughing]

"Oh my God,

you are so passive-aggressive."

"I was just trying to understand."

"If you don't want me to,

I'll sit here in silence."

"I'll just sit here confused

if that's what you want."

Then ten seconds of respite. Ten seconds

of silence will befall the room.

I'll be like, "Oh my God, I think

we finally made the breakthrough."

Then the next scene starts,

and boom, on cue, it's up again.

"Who's she? What's her name again?

Is she a goodie or a baddie?"

"She is the protagonist,

and her name is Peppa Pig!"

[audience laughing]

I know, I shouldn't be

throwing her under the bus.

I should be standing up for her.

That is my duty as her man.

To be honest, that is the only time

I struggle in our relationship,

is when I'm required to be the alpha.

f*ck you. What was that?

[audience laughs]

Just one woman involuntary guffawing

at the mere notion

of me being an alpha male.

I can pull off alpha.

Admittedly, this pose

is not helping me right now. [laughs]

[audience laughing]

I look like a wounded pigeon.

[audience laughing]

[Jack chuckles]

No. But I'm held to this ridiculously

high standard, that's the problem,

because the guy

that she was seeing just before me

was like a proper man's man, right?

He was from the north of England.

He drank beer. He played rugby league.

He used to get into fights.

Yeah. Often on her behalf.

If someone disrespected her,

he would knock them out.

I said to her,

"Now you're going out with me, love."

"If someone disrespects you, you're gonna

have to learn to take it on the chin."

[audience laughing]

I'm cut from a very different cloth.

But now, anyone that so much

as looks at her funny,

I'm expected to start a brouhaha,

which, yes, is not my style,

as you may have guessed

from the fact that

I use words like "brouhaha."

[audience laughing]

But also, ultimately, I'm a coward, okay?

And as a coward,

I can metabolize disrespect

very efficiently.

She really struggles.

We had one situation. I was doing shows

in Austin, Texas, in the States,

and, uh, we went out after the show

to a sort of nightclub bar.

And we're in line for this nightclub.

At the front of the line,

there is a bouncer.

And he was an absolute unit.

He looked like an Aberdeen Angus

in a suit.

[audience laughs]

He was a bit rude to my girlfriend,

but what do you expect? He's a bouncer.

He has not been employed for his bonhomie.

Anyway, she is instantly on at me.

"Oh my God. Did you hear that?

He just disrespected me."

"He has just disrespected

your girl, Jack."

"You gonna let that happen? Gonna let him

disrespect your girl like that?"

"Are you just gonna stand there, Jack,

and do nothing about it?"

"Yep."

[audience laughing]

"Have you seen the head on the fucker?"

"I couldn't inflict any pain

upon this man."

"At a push,

I could maybe hurt his feelings."

"But that is all I have in my locker."

"I am but a humble wordsmith, Roxy."

"And whilst I am a firm believer

of the idiom

'The pen is mightier than the sword, '

we're in America right now,

and these c**ts have g*ns."

[audience laughing]

[Jack chuckles]

- [audience applauding]

- It's true.

[audience cheering and applauding]

She was having none of it.

All night, she kept going,

"Can't believe you let him dishonor me."

That was the word

she kept using, "dishonor."

"Yes, I let him dishonor you

because we were in line for a nightclub,

not medieval France."

[audience laughing]

Maybe that's what I need to do

next time it happens.

Next time that a bouncer "dishonors" her,

I just need to go full costume drama

on his arse.

Right. Next time a bouncer

is rude to her, okay,

I am gonna stride up to the front

of the line at Wetherspoon's. Huh?

[audience laughing]

I'll whip off one of my socks,

slap him across the face,

"I demand satisfaction!"

"You have besmirched the honor

of this fine young maiden."

"Well, today is the day you will be forced

to masticate upon your rancorous slurs,

you protein-guzzling,

sausage-fingered chode!"

"I summon you to the car park

immediately for fisticuffs!"

"It's time to meet

your dancing partners for this evening,

Lord Left-Hook and Lady Lights-Out."

"I float like a butterfly,

I sting like a bee."

"And I've got hips like Shakira,

'cause I regularly ski."

[audience laughing]

[audience cheering and applauding]

[Jack chuckles]

You see, this is my problem.

I'm not a violent guy,

but put a couple of drinks in me,

I just love me a little bit of mischief.

Like, the other one I did,

I'm not proud of this.

This was a couple of years ago

in my misspent youth.

I was in Ibiza, the party island,

having a rave in one of the clubs, and...

Yeah, let's just say

some drink had been taken. [chuckles]

And possibly some additionals. [chuckles]

[audience laughs]

I was in Ibiza,

my jaw was on the mainland. Like...

[Jack and audience laughing]

Anyway, in this state,

one of my friends dared me

to undo a stranger's man bun.

[surprised laughter]

I was like, "Oh my God,

that is a marvelous idea!"

[audience laughs]

"I shall be like a vigilante,

making the world a better place,

ridding it of bell ends,

one man bun at a time."

[audience laughing]

I found my prey, right?

He was, like, a proper lad.

He had the sleeve tattoos. Spray-on jeans.

That little fanny-pack across his chest.

Top knot flapping around

like nobody's business.

He looked like

a 'roided-up My Little Pony.

"f*ckin' 'ell."

[audience laughing]

I stalked my prey for a bit. I was like,

"Right. I reckon I can get

this man bun off without him realizing."

Spoiler alert,

you can't.

[audience laughing]

I creep up behind him.

And then I'm sort of drunkenly hovering

above his head,

like one of those claws in the fairground.

At which point, I'm not gonna lie,

I sobered up very quickly.

I managed to get hold of the man bun

without him realizing.

Then as I popped it off,

he clocked what was going on.

He turns around, furious,

hair tumbling down his face.

He was like,

"Why the f*ck did you do that?"

I said, "Because you're worth it."

[audience laughing]

I definitely delivered that last line

just like that. [chuckles]

There was a lot of music in the club,

so he may have heard it

come out of my mouth as,

[high-pitched] "I'm really sorry.

Here's your scrunchie."

[audience laughing]

[Jack chuckles]

I feel like I may have f*cked my hair

for the rest of this recording now.

Oh God, no. Is that better?

[audience laughs]

Where was I? Oh, yes.

So, being silly. Foolish behavior.

Honestly, what the f*ck am I doing

showing off about that?

That is not behavior becoming of a man

teetering on the precipice of middle age.

Honestly, this feels like the last show

I'll be able to get away with that.

Showing off about lame drunken hijinks.

Because also, as many of you are aware,

I am about to reach

the boss level of adulting,

because my girlfriend is now pregnant.

[audience cheering and applauding]

It's not mine.

[audience laughing]

Now, this... this is a lovely picture.

Yeah, thank you.

It's cute. It's just a little candid snap

we took at home, you know?

Just, uh, for our family and friends

at Hello! magazine.

And we... No.

[audience laughs]

That's the picture she wanted to use. Uh...

I thought this was

a more accurate reflection

of my state of mind at the time.

- [audience laughing]

- [Jack chuckles]

Oh, come on. You'd look like that

if you'd just seen what I saw.

Can you not see the likeness? Seriously?

[audience laughing]

No, it is my kid. That's the reality.

And it's, it's, it's...

You know, it's happening.

And it's crazy because, you know,

it's not like there's any trial period.

There's no returns policy.

You accidentally drop it in the bath,

you can't just put it in a jar of rice

and cross your fingers.

[audience laughing]

And obviously, I tried to seek out advice

before making

this monumental life decision.

But so it's hard.

You can't ask other parents.

You ask other parents about having a kid,

there is no middle ground.

One end of the spectrum,

you have those parents that talk about it

with demented enthusiasm.

The miracle of childbirth,

like they're the only people

to have ever done it.

"Oh my God, you've got to get one.

It is gonna change your life."

Like those f*ckers with air fryers.

It's just a bit, "Okay."

[audience laughing]

The other end of the spectrum

you've got those parents

that are like Vietnam w*r veterans.

Thousand-yard stare. Covered in baby sick.

"Don't do it, man. You weren't there!"

[audience laughing]

I had one of this lot, the 'Nam vets,

drunk at a wedding,

just launch into me

with a load of uninvited life advice.

She was like, "Let me tell you

what you need to do, Jack, while you can."

"You need to make the most of your life,

'cause I tell you

what is gonna happen, right,

is you're gonna get married,

and then you're gonna have a baby,

and your life is gonna be over."

[audience laughing]

"Okay, Mum. Thanks for the pep talk."

[audience laughing]

"You are aware this Sambuca

you're drinking is non-alcoholic?"

[audience laughing]

I managed to do what a lot of men do,

uh, in this situation.

Delaying it, all right.

I-I-I got a dog first.

That's what a lot of, uh, chaps do.

We had actually, quite sadly, been through

some personal tragedy at the time,

and it felt like

the only option at that point

was either to go to therapy or get a dog.

I was like, "Tell me about therapy."

"Talking to a stranger for an hour

about my feelings?"

"What breed shall we get?"

[audience laughs]

So she wanted a dog for emotional support.

I wanted a guard dog.

I wanted a proper hound.

You know, the kind of dog you might see

tattooed onto the arm of a Millwall fan.

Kinda dog that gets you

a little bit of distance and respect

when you're walking

down the street with it

on the way to the f*ckin' boozer

to have a couple of lagers

with the boys. Yeah.

We compromised and got a toy poodle.

[audience laughing]

I wanted a hound. This thing looks like

it came out of a Kinder Surprise.

It's the opposite of a guard dog.

I've been abused because of my dog.

I was in a pub in Walthamstow

with my mates.

Old geezer at the bar

looks over at me and my dog.

He's like, "'Ere, mate,

does your dog come in a men's?"

Ooh, f*cking sh*ts fired!

I was like, "I wouldn't judge a book

by its cover, buddy."

"You look at her the wrong way,

she will rip your throat out."

"You'd better pray

she doesn't get out of this handbag."

[audience laughing]

[chuckles]

We got the lamest breed. "It's fine.

We'll make up for it with the name."

Know what she wanted

to call the toy poodle?

My girlfriend

wanted to call our toy poodle

Beyonc.

- [audience roaring with laughter]

- Absolutely not. No way.

That's when the foot came down.

We're not having a dog called Beyonc.

I am not shouting that out in public.

Can you imagine me in a park,

a little toy poodle yapping around,

me being like, "Beyonc! Hey, Beyonc!"

"You come back to your daddy!"

No, I'm sorry.

I'd sooner let the dog just run away.

I don't care

what my girlfriend has to say.

"Oh my God, Jack,

what happened to the dog?"

"If you liked it,

you should've put a lead on it."

[audience laughing]

[audience applauding]

[audience cheering and applauding]

She keeps calling me its daddy as well.

I'm like, I'm not its daddy,

I'm its master.

We will have standards in this house.

She's like, "No, you should treat the dog

just like you'd treat our actual child."

Straight on Google,

"Are there boarding schools for dogs?"

[audience laughing]

I caught her calling it a rescue dog.

I was like, "It's not a rescue dog.

I paid a woman on the Internet for it."

She's like, "No, but the dog rescued me."

That's not what rescue dog means.

[audience laughs]

This woman, the breeder.

Oh my God, she saw us coming a mile off.

It was a lockdown dog.

Do you know what she wanted

for the toy poodle?

Five thousand pounds.

I was like,

"Nice to meet a fellow comedian."

[audience laughs]

Absolutely no way

am I forking that out for a dog.

You are getting negotiated down,

don't you worry about that.

We had to meet the dog first.

I'd been warned, don't do it in person,

'cause you hold the dog,

feel the dog, smell the dog,

you fall in love, you're f*cked.

You hand the money over on the spot.

I said, "We'll do a Zoom."

Yes. Keep a little bit of distance.

So we arranged a Zoom

so that Roxy could see the dog,

and the woman that wanted five grand

could see that

I don't have the word "twat" there.

[audience laughing]

And I prepped Roxy for this Zoom.

I said, "It's vitally important

when we get onto Zoom with this charlatan,

you don't act too keen."

"Because if you act too keen, you will

compromise my negotiating position."

"So we must wear our poker faces.

Cool, calm, collected."

"Those are our bywords."

The Zoom starts, the breeder holds

this little puppy up to the camera.

The puppy, achoo, sneezes.

My girlfriend instantly starts crying.

"Oh my God!"

"It's the most beautiful creature

I've ever seen!"

"I'm in love!"

"Oh my God, Jack,

I'll k*ll myself if I can't have her!"

[audience laughing]

"Well done. Just as we'd rehearsed."

"Thanks very much, Roxy,

for pulling down my trousers,

lubing me up, and bending me

over the barrel for this woman."

[audience laughs]

Six thousand pounds.

I paid six grand

for a barking toilet brush.

[audience laughing]

And a faulty one as well.

Yeah. I got sold a faulty dog.

It's a beautiful creature,

don't get me wrong, but it is faulty.

The breeder dropped it round a week later.

She's outside my house in her new Porsche.

"Hi!" "f*ck you."

[audience laughing]

Hands me this dog, and it's faulty.

It's got an underbite.

It's got breathing issues.

Hasn't got enough nipples.

[chuckles]

Admittedly, "Hasn't got enough nipples"

makes it sound like

there was a number I was hoping for.

I don't care how many nipples a dog has,

I just know

there shouldn't be seven of them.

There should not be a prime number.

There should be a divisible

amount of nipples on a dog.

I was like, "Roxy, take a photograph

of this animal's undercarriage,

send it to the breeder."

"I want some money back."

She was like, "Why would we get money back

for a missing nipple?"

"I don't care. Make up a reason."

"Say it's why we bought the dog

in the first place, for milking purposes."

"We're trying

to wean ourselves off oat milk

and we weren't getting enough of a yield

from the hamster. I don't care!"

[audience laughing]

'Cause I can't do anything either.

It's completely feral.

For six grand, I was expecting it

to be able to do cartwheels

and make me breakfast in bed.

It can't sit or fetch or stay.

Got its own Instagram account, though.

She thought that was a priority,

to set it up as a dog influencer.

Now my girlfriend runs

this preposterous account as the dog.

She posts pictures as the dog.

She sends me messages as the dog.

Yeah. Sometimes that's quite sweet,

sometimes less so.

Especially when the tone of the messages

you are receiving from your own dog

are a little bit spicy.

[audience laughs]

As was the case the other night.

I was in the pub with my friends

watching football.

All of a sudden, my DMs are getting lit up

by an angry poodle.

"Do you think it's acceptable

to go out drinking

and not tell me

what time you're coming home?"

"Ooh, I don't know, Beyonc."

"No less acceptable

than sh1tting on the carpet."

[audience laughing]

I had to turn to my mates and be like,

"I'm really sorry.

I think I have to go home

because I'm getting grief from Beyonc."

I feel like Jay-Z,

except I've got 99 problems

and my b*tch very much is one of them.

[audience laughing and applauding]

[audience cheering and applauding]

I got a kinky message from the dog

the other day as well by the way.

By accident, I should hasten to add.

What happened is I posted a picture

on my Instagram of me with my shirt off.

My girlfriend went to put a sexy comment.

Unfortunately, she had forgotten

to switch accounts. Yeah.

Open up my Instagram,

and underneath this picture of me

with my kit off, my dog had just put,

"I wanna sit on your face."

[audience laughing]

[chuckles] Don't get me wrong.

Part of me was like,

"Thank f*ck someone's taught you to sit."

[audience laughing]

It does work, though,

this step of getting the dog first.

Honestly. I was not a dog person at all,

and now I love this thing.

And I'm like, "Bloody hell.

If I'm capable of loving and caring

for this yapping, crapping,

nipple-deficient ball of fluff,

maybe I am ready for the next stage."

So, yeah, then we decided

we were gonna try and have a baby.

That was not the easiest of journeys.

We had a few bumps along the way.

I, uh... I don't want to give you

the Instagram-filtered version of my life.

We actually lost a baby first.

We suffered a miscarriage,

which is a horrible thing

for anyone to go through.

I mention it because it's this weird grief

that is sort of shrouded in secrecy.

I didn't talk about it for ages.

As soon as I was comfortable

sharing it with friends and family

and realizing that other people

had had similar experiences,

it was a huge comfort to me.

And my girlfriend was so strong

throughout all of it.

I'm completely in awe of her.

See, she was so resilient.

She was amazing,

and it completely recalibrated my mindset.

I went from being scared, bewildered,

ambivalent about the idea of having a kid,

to suddenly wanting to be a dad

more than anything else in the world.

[audience cheering and applauding]

Thank you.

I felt guilty as well. I felt guilty

that it had taken me this long

to arrive at a place where I genuinely

feel excited to be settling down.

I dragged my heels.

The latter part of my twenties was

a period of sort of feckless misadventure.

I was chasing pleasure.

And in my thirties,

it was like happiness crept up on me.

I was also really keen

to get on with it now,

especially with my dad.

I really wanted to get on with it

so that I could still

give him a grandchild

out of wedlock, just to f*ck him off.

[audience laughing and applauding]

I know that's not the only reason

to have a kid,

but it's got to be a bonus

to wind up the old man.

Also, even better,

Roxy is from the East End of London.

How incredible is that?

Michael Whitehall

is gonna be the grandfather

to a literal Cockney bastard.

[audience laughing]

Got the due date the other day.

That was weird.

We went in and had the first scan,

and I saw baby for the first time.

Eyes and nose, its heartbeat,

the little silver spoon in its mouth.

[audience laughing]

I asked about the due date,

and the nurse got all shifty.

She was like, "Yes, so baby's due date

is gonna be sometime

between the 10th of September

and the 12th of September."

I went, "It feels like there's a date

slap bang in the middle there

that for some reason

you don't want to say."

That is because

my baby's due date is 9/11.

[audience laughing]

Roxy was very upset about that.

I was a little bit more pragmatic.

I was like, "I don't think it's going

to affect our lives in any serious way."

I mean, it probably rules out

the name Osama, but...

- [audience laughing]

- ...it wasn't high on the list.

"This is little Osama bin Whitehall.

It's a family name."

[audience laughing]

If you're pulling back from me

on that comment,

you do not want to hear

what my dad said when I told him.

I came out of the scan.

Roxy was still quite distressed.

I called my dad up, I said,

"Right, there's good news and bad news."

"Uh, good news, the baby's healthy."

"Bad news, it does look like

the due date is 9/11."

And he went,

"Well, I guess it could be worse."

"You could be having twins."

- [audience] Oh!

- No. No.

[surprised laughter]

[audience applauding]

"No, Michael, please."

"I will not be telling Roxy that."

"Though I may write it down

to tell people on a Netflix special

at some point in the future."

[audience laughs]

At the moment, most of my life

is spent k*lling

inappropriate name suggestions of hers.

The other day, she came into the bedroom.

"I was thinking, if it's a girl, Phoenix."

I was thinking, "No f*cking way."

[audience laughs]

She's like, "Why? Phoenix is a cute name."

I was like, "Phoenix is a stripper name."

She went, "How would you know?"

"Dunno. Never been

to a strip club in my life,

but I imagine that's the kind of name

a stripper might be called."

"Maybe we should do some due diligence.

Google it."

She was like, "Google what?"

"Type in, 'Top ten stripper names.'"

So we had this weird moment.

We're there with the baby books,

and I'm on Google

typing in the top ten stripper names.

Know what? There is a website

with the top ten stripper names,

and to be fair to her,

Phoenix is not on it.

But do you know what number one is?

Roxy.

[audience roaring with laughter]

[Jack laughing]

We could keep

with the family tradition. [chuckles]

[audience laughing]

We had six months

before we started trying for a baby

to get everything out of our system.

I wanna do all the fun,

impromptu, sort of reckless things

that we're not gonna be able to do

once we've got a kid.

She was like, "Yes!

Like drive Route 66 or go on a safari."

I was thinking more like

smoke crystal meth just once,

just to see what all the fuss is about.

Heard it's very moreish. I, uh...

[audience laughs]

I gave in on the safari. She's been

dreaming of doing one for yonks.

I could think of nothing worse,

'cause as we've already established,

I am a massive p*ssy.

- And...

- [audience laughs]

I said, "We'll do it,

but on my terms, all right?"

I'm having to fork out

for the top-of-the-range safari.

There are certain things in life

I will penny-pinch on. That is not one.

If I'm on their turf, I'm gonna need

the state-of-the-art armored 4x4.

I'm gonna need the park ranger

that looks like The Rock.

'Cause you can do it on the cheap.

"Oh look, that guy over there

is offering it for half price."

"You mean that man with the rickshaw

and the left leg

that somewhat peters out at the knee?"

"Yeah, he's offering it for half-price

'cause he only has to take you

into the Serengeti."

"That is not a safari.

That is Deliveroo for lions."

[audience laughing]

You're not given anything

to defend yourself. That was a shock.

Thought I'd get a knife or g*n.

The only thing they gave me

to defend myself from lions,

on morning one,

they handed me an air horn.

A little pump-up air horn.

I was like,

"What the f*ck is this gonna do?"

- [audience laughing]

- "I'm getting mauled to death by a lion,

I'm meant to whip out my air horn,

give that a little toot-toot, then what?"

"Presumably alert other lions

in the area?"

"Dinner's about to be served!"

All of the advice they give you,

complete bollocks.

'Cause I wanted to know about

every single eventuality.

I said, "Right, what do I do

if an elephant charges me?"

Do you know what they said?

"If an elephant charges you,

you should run up a tree."

[audience laughs]

"I'm not a f*cking squirrel."

[audience laughs]

"I could maybe climb a tree

if you gave me 20 minutes, a leg-up,

and an elephant charging me with a limp."

"But I'm not climbing these trees

any time soon,

because I don't know if you've noticed,

none of them have got any branches

because the elephants

have f*cking eaten them all!"

[audience laughing]

You don't pick who you're in the car with.

They leave that out of the brochure.

Yeah. That is a big issue.

Two of us on our safari.

The vehicle had six seats.

You do the math.

That meant,

for the duration of our safari,

as it turned out,

we were to be sharing our car

with a family of four

from Florida.

[hesitant laughter]

My reaction exactly.

[audience laughs]

Now these Floridians...? What's the word

they have for people from Florida?

Bigots. These bigots. They, uh...

[audience laughing]

I need to describe their appearance.

It's important that I do.

I'm not saying this to be crass,

but they did have rather an abundance

of junk in the proverbial trunk.

I'm not saying that to have a pop.

You do you.

Big is beautiful. Body positivity.

I do not have prejudice against anyone

for their size.

Unless

I am stuck in a car with you

surrounded by hungry lions.

[audience laughs]

At that point, yep,

I become a little bit judgy.

It turned what should've been

a pleasant holiday

into a white-knuckle ride.

Every day, trundling around the Serengeti

sat next to a man that was essentially

a doner kebab in a MAGA cap.

[audience laughs]

Every time I went past a lion,

I'd see its head crane round,

licking its lips.

Eye-banging the all-you-can-eat buffet

on wheels.

I felt like sushi on a conveyor belt.

Roxy kept trying to put me at ease.

"Jack, don't worry."

"If the lions did attack us,

they would probably fill up

on the Floridians first."

"They wouldn't have room for us."

I was like,

"What if we're the amuse-bouche?"

"You've made the assumption

that we're pudding."

"You of all people should know

you do not contain enough sugar

to be a dessert!"

[audience laughing]

Morning two, I shit you not,

the Floridians' wife

came down for breakfast,

of a safari,

she was wearing a zebra-print shirt.

"Hi!"

I was like, "Absolutely not. No way."

"Try again. Shoo."

I had to air-horn her back into her tent

to change into something more appropriate.

We were on a safari.

She came dressed as prey.

[audience laughing]

I was so worried

about attracting the animals,

I didn't even spray myself

with Lynx Africa that morning.

[audience laughing]

That was the other thing

I kept thinking on safari.

This is a bit of a distraction,

but every day, I was like,

"How on earth is the zebra not extinct?"

What the f*ck was God smoking

when he came up with them?

I know he did the world in seven days.

The zebra must've been done

at about 5:55 on the Friday afternoon.

"Right, we're down to Z."

"Let's crack through this one quickly,

and we can all f*ck off down the pub."

"Zebra, you are gonna be like a fat,

slightly slower version of a horse,

and we'll put you over there in Africa

with all of the deadliest predators

on the planet."

"Any questions?"

"Uh, yeah, just a few." [chuckles]

"If I'm gonna be out there

with all of those mean m*therf*ckers,

then I'm probably

going to need to blend in."

"So could I have some camouflage?"

"Well, we were thinking

black and white stripes."

"Very slimming."

[audience laughs]

"Black and white stripes?

Have you seen the landscape here, mate?"

"Everything's beige."

"I'm not working in a Foot Locker."

[audience laughs]

"All the other animals,

if they wanna hide,

they go into a bush or up a tree."

"My only chance of subterfuge

is getting tickets to Newcastle-Juventus."

[audience laughs]

"Fine. If I'm gonna be out there

dressed like a twat,

I need something to defend myself."

"A lot of the other prey,

all of them in fact,

have got big tusks

or vicious-looking horns,

antlers coming out of their heads."

"What were you thinking for me?"

"Mohican?"

[audience laughing]

"So no w*apon, just a really loud haircut?

Thank you very much."

"That's me, is it? Stuck in the middle

of a primordial feeding frenzy,

looking like a lesbian barcode?"

[audience laughing]

[audience applauding]

Sorry, that was a bit of an aside.

I... [chuckles]

I'm not done with the Floridians yet.

The other issue was the levels of chat.

Every day, she'd be

waiting for me in the car.

She was like, "So, what does everyone

wanna see most on this safari?"

Her husband was like,

"I'd like to see a tiger."

Good luck, mate.

You're on the wrong f*cking continent.

[audience laughing]

Honestly, in the end, the only way

I could get through the week

was by winding the Floridians up

that the lions were gay. [laughs]

[audience laughing]

He did not like that chat at all. [laughs]

He was like, "What in the world

are you talking about, son?"

"I don't know what they're teaching you

in schools in 'Engerland, ' buddy,

but that does not happen in nature."

"You do not get gay lions."

"Why do you think they call them prides?"

"Okay. Okay. Okay."

- [audience laughing]

- [Jack chuckles]

"It's not natural."

That's what they say,

right-wing fundamentalist Christians.

Remember when they announced

the live-action Beauty and the Beast,

and they said

there was gonna be a gay character?

Ooh, the right-wing

fundamentalist Christians weren't happy.

"You can't have that in a Disney movie,

a man loving another man."

"It's not natural."

Not natural?

That film is about a woman

f*cking a wildebeest.

[audience laughing]

[Jack chuckles]

To be fair, I don't think I've taken that

directly from the Disney Plus description.

[audience laughs]

That's got to stop, hasn't it?

Grown adults

getting wound up about cartoons.

It just happened

with the live-action Little Mermaid.

They announced the actress

playing Ariel is mixed-race.

Oh, r*cist Twitter wasn't happy.

"You can't have that.

You can't have a mixed-race Ariel."

She's a mermaid.

She is the most mixed-race character

that has ever been conceived.

From the waist down, she's mixed grill.

[audience laughing]

That wasn't the worst.

The worst was a tweet,

it had thousands of retweets,

some r*cist troll

that was trying to play the science card.

How desperately sad are you

that you're trying to bring science

into this discussion?

He was like, "It's not even

scientifically possible, right,

'cause how... how would enough sunlight

get down to the bottom of the ocean

for the Little Mermaid's skin

to produce the melanin?"

"Ooh, I don't know.

Why don't we ask the talking crab?"

[audience laughing]

"Do you wanna have a word with him?"

"Although I don't think

you two will get along,

'cause he appears to be a Rastafarian."

[audience laughing]

It's make-believe!

Who f*cking cares?

I guess the only thing they should've

updated is the ending, right?

If Ariel is mixed-race,

it probably can't be happily ever after.

If Ariel is mixed-race,

she's got to marry the prince,

get harangued by the British press,

and run away to do a Netflix documentary.

[surprised laughter]

- [audience cheering and applauding]

- [Jack chuckling]

Well, I wasn't gonna go there,

but since we have, I...

Just my personal interest. Give me a cheer

if you're Team Meghan and Harry.

[audience cheers]

Give me a cheer

if you're Team Royal Family?

[audience cheers louder]

Give me a cheer

if you're Team Couldn't Give A f*ck?

[audience cheering loudest]

I'm very much in your camp.

[audience laughs]

I feel a bit sorry for them,

but, then again, at the end of the day,

to take Netflix's money to do a show

where you just humiliate your family...

[audience laughing]

[Jack chuckling]

I like seeing more representation

in all walks of life. I do.

Honestly, I saw a lovely article recently,

groundbreaking news,

Marvel had announced

their first-ever trans superhero.

I thought, that's lovely.

The only person I felt a little sorry for

when I read that article

was the guy

that came up with Transformers.

[audience laughs]

Come on. A superhero that's a woman

that used to be a man? Great.

But groundbreaking?

Optimus Prime used to be a truck.

[audience laughing]

Just saying, wait till those transformers

start getting involved in women's sport.

- You think Piers Morgan's annoyed now...

- [audience laughs]

...that in the women's swimming,

the athlete in lane three

has an unfair advantage

'cause she was biologically born a man?

Wait till he finds out

the athlete in lane six

was biologically born a submarine.

[audience laughing]

But that is indicative

of this wider problem

where everyone has to have an opinion

about everything these days.

I always used to like

what my grandmother said.

My grandmother always used to say,

"Opinions are like farts."

"It's best to hold them in,

because no one's gonna appreciate them

as much as you."

[audience laughing]

I think there's wisdom to that.

I think we've been conditioned

to be like this

'cause we're asked for our opinion

all the time, far too much if you ask me.

We've got Yelp, TripAdvisor,

Uber, and Amazon.

Every time you go into a shop,

"Fill in this questionnaire.

Give us your feedback."

You walk out of the toilet now

in the airport,

you're met with a panel of faces

so you can tell them

how much that shit made you smile.

[audience laughs]

And Twitter,

the f*cking world's cubicle wall

that allows every half-baked opinion

to be suddenly broadcast to the world.

I think about this so much more

now that I'm about to bring a child

into this toxic hellscape.

And I think,

"What piece of advice would I give them?"

And ultimately, the very simple advice

I'd give my kid, and to anyone, is this.

What we need to learn is that sometimes

it is okay to let the people

who know what they're talking about

talk about what they know about.

I accept there's quite a lot of things

I'm ill-informed of,

and therefore,

there will be a fair few discussions

that it is probably best

that I just sit out of.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have opinions.

It's vitally important to have opinions.

I'm just saying, you don't have

to have an opinion about everything.

Every now and again, very rarely,

there may come a time

when you can genuinely add

something of interest to the discourse.

But in the meantime, wait your turn,

pick your moment,

and in the nicest way possible,

shut the f*ck up.

[audience cheering and applauding]

That was a very long-winded way of saying

I don't wanna read any negative feedback

about this show on Twitter.

[audience laughing]

Ultimately, I think I maybe spent

a little too much time over in the States.

I was surprised by how homesick I got.

And I want to tell you about

one of the bleakest moments.

I'd been living there for about a year,

trying to do long-distance with Rox.

It had been a struggle,

and I was on the phone to her.

Put it down,

and I was feeling very sad and very alone.

I was like, "I know what I need to do.

I need to take myself for a nice meal."

"I'm gonna wine and dine myself."

So I go to a restaurant, and I don't mind

eating on my own in a restaurant,

but I do like there to be

a degree of discretion when I do so.

I always approach eating on my own

in a restaurant like I approach sex.

In and out as quickly as possible,

minimal eye contact,

and then scurry for the exit,

leaving a woman very disappointed

about the size of my tip.

[audience laughing]

I whisper my name,

whisper my name to this hostess,

and she walks back out five minutes later,

and at the top of her voice,

she uses my name

in the most depressing sentence

that I have ever heard it used.

She walks out, she goes,

"Jack Whitehall!"

"Party for one!"

[audience laughing]

Party for one?!

That is the most depressing

description of my lunch

that I have ever f*cking heard!

And now everyone in the restaurant

is looking over to see

who the pity party for one is.

I have to do the walk of shame

through the restaurant.

[audience laughing]

She sits me down

at the pity party for one.

She then does that thing.

Why do waitresses feel the need to do this

if you're eating on your own?

She comes over to my table

and makes a big song and dance

of removing the place setting opposite me.

Why do they do that?

As if to say,

"We wouldn't want anyone looking over here

and accidentally thinking

that you're waiting for someone."

"No, I need everyone

in this establishment to know

that you're probably gonna die alone."

"Why don't I just get my chair

and stick it up against the wall,

so I don't accidentally make eye contact

with any of the happy customers?"

"Or you can bring a to-go bag out.

I'll put it on my head."

"Or better still, there's some space

down here underneath the table."

"Why don't I just have my dinner

down here, like a dog?"

"Is now a good time to mention

it's my birthday?"

[audience laughing]

"Does sir have any allergies today,

or should I just put 'people'?"

[audience laughing]

She then asked my second least-favorite

question in a restaurant.

"Would you like bottled water or tap?"

"Oh, well, when you put it like that."

Why do they always have to frame it

in that way?

All water has technically

come through a tap at some point,

even the posh shit in the bottles.

How do you think it got there

in the first place?

This waitress wasn't out

in a field this morning,

skipping through it,

dunking them into a babbling brook.

No, but they say "tap"

because words have power,

and "tap" conjures up

an image in your head, doesn't it,

of some rusty tap out back,

in an alleyway.

The waitress walking out there

with a mangy pail of water

to fill it up as some sweaty sous-chef

douses down his nether regions

after a hot service.

[audience laughing]

Maybe I have quite a vivid imagination,

but you get the point.

She's back with the menus. By this point,

I thought she was taking the piss.

She's like, "Right, well, we serve things

in this menu family-style."

[giggles] "Well, joke's on you, love."

"This is my family style.

I went to a boarding school."

[audience laughs]

"You're not gonna be interested

in this first page of our menu,

because these are

all of our sharing plates."

"Oh my God. I get it.

I haven't got any friends."

She's like, "Here we are, sir.

This is more your area here."

"Wines by the glass."

[high-pitched] "Wines by the glass."

I was so smug.

I was like, "Oh, madam."

"You have really misread this situation."

"You see, I am British."

"I may eat for a party of one,

but I drink for a party of five!"

[audience roaring with laughter]

[audience cheering and applauding]

I love that we live in a country

where you can get away with that.

Ordering a bottle of wine at lunch

and not getting judged for it.

Oh my God.

That picture...

[chuckles] She's had a couple.

I... [chuckles]

That picture, the jolly day-drinker,

polishing off a bottle of pinot

before 1:00 p.m.

Stick that shit on the ten-pound note.

[audience laughing]

That... That is the kind of reason

I could never move to America permanently.

And I nearly did. At the end of last year,

I nearly made the move permanently,

and at the last minute, I pulled out.

Ironically, I'd failed to pull out

in another situation,

but that's already been touched on.

Ultimately, I realized

that I wanna raise my kid here.

I wanna settle down here.

Whisper it quietly, I like it here.

And I don't mean that

in like a sort of jingoistic way.

I think there's enough people

in this country

that tell you that you should love it

in a very specific manner.

Ultimately, there's a host

of different reasons

that we can love where we live

and who we are.

And I realized the longer I spent away,

it was the mundane, weird,

random shit that I began to miss.

LA is 365 days a year of sunshine.

I began to miss drizzle.

[audience laughs]

I love nothing more

than being sat in a beer garden

huddled underneath an umbrella,

getting battered by horizontal rain

in the middle of July.

Being the designated person to lean over

and switch on the heater every 50 seconds.

[audience laughs]

I miss a proper music festival

that you come back from

with food poisoning and trench foot.

I cannot wait to be in my first mosh pit

with little baby Phoenix

strapped onto my chest.

I went to a parody of a music festival

in America called Coachella.

I heard a woman there complaining

because they had ran out of hand sanitizer

in the VIP area.

I was like,

"Love, I was at Glastonbury once

and saw a woman in the gents

squatting in front of a urinal

using a Croc as a Shewee."

[audience laughing]

It's wonderful to see you again, madam.

I didn't recognize you until that moment.

I miss living in a country that doesn't

give a toss about designer labels

or who's wearing who.

Where the biggest fashion story of 2023

was that Primark were doing

a collaboration with Greggs, the baker.

[audience cheering and applauding]

They did a sportswear range!

Have you got any idea

how much of a middle finger that is

to the wellness industry?

Turning up to the gym

in the same packaging as a sausage roll?

[audience laughs]

I miss our shit food.

Steak bakes. Scotch eggs.

A breakfast of champions,

washed down with a gallon of milky tea

and gravy on f*cking everything.

We love gravy so much in this country,

we're not gonna pour it

out of a poncy little jug.

We are a maritime nation,

and our gravy should arrive at the table

in a f*cking boat!

[audience cheering]

And it shall be served to us

without the hint of a smile.

God bless the complete absence

of customer service in this country!

In America, being asked how my meal was

in between every single mouthful.

The joy of coming back home

and being served this afternoon

in a caf in Bermondsey

by a woman that wouldn't give a f*ck

if I dropped down dead

in front of her at the table.

Thank you very much, O2!

I've been Jack Whitehall!

You've been amazing!

Good night!

- [audience cheering and applauding]

- ["Enigma Variations" playing]

Thank you!

[audience whistling]

["Enigma Variations" continues playing]