Whitehall Jack - Him & Me: A Father and Son Remember it all Differently

With illustrations by Jack Whitehall

I was pleased to hear from Michael Whitehall on that Thursday morning. He had been a guest at a successful Good Companions lunch at the Reform Club two days previously and here was his call to thank me.

Lovely lunch. By the way, Ive written a book, of course. Now are you listening because we dont have much time? Jack and I think that we need an outsider who knows us well to write an introduction to our book Him & Me. And weve alighted on you. The problem is that weve run out of time. Ill email the book to you and if you could craft a 750-word masterpiece warm and insightful by the weekend, that would be just dandy. Talk later. Bye.

I switched on my computer and with a sickening thud realized that, following the removal of a cataract the previous Saturday and the insertion of a long-range lens, I was unable to focus on anything under forty-six point. Distance perfect. Everything close-up pea soup.

This infirmity, added to my inexperience of literary criticism, was going to make for a tricky day.

I first ran into Jack on the set of Would I Lie to You?, where we were both guest panelists. He was fast becoming nationally known as a wit, performer and actor; it was easy to see why.

A charming young man, taught from time to time at Marlborough College, as it happens, by my no-nonsense daughter-in-law, Liz. Later, I mentioned having met him and she remarked, A very naughty boy spent a good deal of time doodling in the margins.

So whilst I met Jack on the set of WILTY, I was introduced to Father Whitehall, his minence grise, in the Green Room after the show.

Daddy, this is Nick. Youll have a lot in common. You can talk about the Blitz.

As soon as I heard the first long, drawling vowel from Michael, I knew I was in good company. And when I turned to confront the voice, and Daddys twinkling eye, I knew Jack came from good comic genes.

I half closed my eyes. Was I listening to Rex Harrison? I decided not. It was an edgy George Sanders, whose urbane suicide note, Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored, would please Michael in the unlikely event that he ever feels low.

So the septuagenarian Daddy and the not yet mid-twenties darling of the girls upper sixth have set about a book together. And what a joy it is. Stories from their joint lives, told from their own viewpoints, each writing as well as the other. Daddy, with the driest of wits, ironic with nuggets of cruelty tossed in, to Jacks more urban vocab.

The stories pile one on top of the other, peopled by wonderful characters the theatrical brigade from Michaels days as the most successful agent in London, and Jacks collection of increasingly bizarre pals as he enters his teenage years. Up pops in a dinner jacket right at the start of the book, calling in to the Portland Hospital within minutes of Jacks birth to claim a role as a godfather with the exclusive right to be the boys moral guardian, while Richard Griffiths would immediately start a running-away fund.

We travel through Jacks childhood and his prep school days, starting with his bravura performance to be refused admission to the Dragon School; the sports fields at Marlborough; his short-lived career as a nude life model there, part of a plan concocted to lure a dishy girl pupil to disrobe too.

So the names and anecdotes from both come pouring in, each writing lengthily on the same events, fiercely contesting the others version. A nineteen-year tour of the Whitehall family, including the beautiful Hilary, mother to Molly and Barnaby, as well as naughty Jack.

What captivated me, apart from the arch humour and scintillating wit, was the deep affection that ran from page one between father and son. However hard they try to send one another up, its clear that Michael and Jack have a special and unbreakable filial bond.

Oh, Michael, why couldst thou not have been my father, and if I had had a second son, Jack, would you have ?