“Happy Travels”

Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father: Season One

Network Netflix

Release Date 22 September 2017

Episodes 6

Binge time 3 Hours

British comedian, Jack Whitehall (Fresh Meat, Bad Education), claims at the beginning of his show that he never got a “gap year”. Unlike his school friends of the same age, Jack was already touring and working in comedy before he got his chance to have a year off backpacking around the world.

His new show, Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father, is his chance to do just that. In 5 weeks he plans to see some of the most popular backpacker destinations in South East Asia, including major cities in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. And then, just because he thinks it’ll be a laugh, he decides to bring along his extremely middle-class, very wealthy and utterly unadventurous 70-year-old father, Michael Whitehall.

According to Jack, the reason for bringing “Daddy” along is because he was sent to boarding school at a very young age, and this experience will be his last chance to finally bond with his father, as well as encouraging Michael to get out of his strict habits, relax, and be adventurous. That, and because it guarantees an ongoing gag for the whole series: there’s a LOT of Jack saying “I have organised this strange activity” and Michael saying “nope, no way.”

The best elements of this show had to be the travelling and the arranged activities. There were so many things I’ve never heard of or seen before, and the show does well in keeping it about the travel. There are some quintessential ventures ticked off, like a full moon party and crazy food markets, although not everything would be something a backpacker would typically do on a “gap year”, like playing in a game of elephant polo. I especially loved the segment about the mine-sweeping rats in Cambodia. Fascinating!

Less impressive to me, but only slightly, is the humour. Don’t get me wrong, the combo of the cheeky Jack Whitehall and his haughty father can be very funny, but so much of it is set up it gets a little old. Now and then when Michael says something ridiculous and Jack despairs you can see the genuine bickering and it’s great, but most of the time it’s very obvious the way things have been organised and laid in place to get a reaction from Jack’s dad. Which is fine, but they can’t pretend it’s not obvious.

Even though the jokes got a little old, if they decided to make another series that saw another part of the world then I would definitely watch it. The travelling element was awesome, and Jack Whitehall is always fun to watch.