Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father
TRAVELOGUE Netflix Jack Whitehall and his father Michael embark on a road trip together following the popular gap year route through South East Asia.
THE LAST TIME Jack Whitehall took a TV road trip, it was a fun-filled jaunt across the USA with his friends Jamie Redknapp and Freddie Flintoff from
A League Of Their Own.
But this week the 29-year-old comic embarks on a very different journey when he visits Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in the company of his cantankerous 77-year-old father, Michael.
‘I didn’t really have a traditional gap year as I was already starting off in comedy in my teens,’ explains Jack. ‘Dad is not a keen traveller and he hates being away from home, so I thought it would be funny to bring him along.’
The Whitehalls have teamed up before for chat show Backchat, but five weeks in each other’s company proved quite an ordeal. While enthusiastic Jack embraced the beach parties, massages and beer, buttoned-up Michael, a retired theatrical agent, found himself yearning for lamb chops and a copy of
The Telegraph.
‘We made quite an odd couple,’ laughs Jack. ‘I’ll never forget us sitting on the beach at Phuket. We looked like a sugar daddy and his young bit of crumpet.
‘He was very nervous about some things. When we arrived off the plane, he was aching and had a massage. But he made me stay with him as he didn’t want any funny business.’
Despite Michael’s struggles with the local food, customs and standards of hygiene,
Jack reckons the trip was a resounding success.
‘He genuinely threw himself into the experience more than I thought he would,’ he says. ‘We were closer by the end of it. It was a real privilege.’