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" Channel 4&amp;#039;s new comedy Fresh Meat certainly has a strong pedigree - created by Peep Show&amp;#039;s Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, the show follows a group of mismatched university freshers who are thrown together in a squalid student house. The terrific cast includes Inbetweeners star Joe Thomas and comedian Jack Whitehall. We caught up with Jack - who plays posh berk J.P. - to chat about his first major acting role, the turbulent history of stand-ups in sitcoms and the application of &amp;quot;classic banter&amp;quot;. What made you decide to take on an acting role? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve wanted to do an acting role for a long time, and been looking around for things to possibly get involved in. I&amp;#039;d gone to quite a lot of auditions and never got anything! Then I saw a press release online about this show happening, so I actually called up my agent and said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d love you to get me an audition for this, because it sounds brilliant&amp;#039;. &amp;quot;I saw that Sam and Jesse were doing it, and it was set in Manchester, so I really wanted to go and do it. I convinced them to see me for the part, and was then convinced I hadn&amp;#039;t got it. But there must have been some sort of mistake, because they gave it to me!&amp;quot; Stand-up comics haven&amp;#039;t always succeeded at sitcoms - are you worried about a backlash? &amp;quot;It is hard, isn&amp;#039;t it, because you&amp;#039;re sort of known for yourself as a stand-up. I think the joy of doing this was that I was playing a character - quite a big character as well! When I&amp;#039;m on stage, I&amp;#039;m quite over the top - I&amp;#039;m quite flamboyant and camp. But this character is very much [about being] macho [and] bravado, and I like to think he&amp;#039;s a lot posher than I am!   &amp;quot;Because he&amp;#039;s so different to me, it makes it easier in a way. I think if I was playing a heightened version of myself, that&amp;#039;s when it gets quite hard. I think historically that&amp;#039;s when stand-ups in sitcoms find it more difficult to make the crossover - when they are playing a version of themselves. You just think of them as stand-ups.&amp;quot; Did your stand-up work help you prepare for your role? &amp;quot;Well, I&amp;#039;m quite theatrical when I do stand-up on stage. I do a lot of characters and voices, and stuff like that. I think it&amp;#039;s harder if you&amp;#039;re more of a &amp;#039;man and a mike&amp;#039; - that&amp;#039;s more difficult. But for all I know, people might not take to it. They might hate me and then I&amp;#039;ll have to go back to stand-up with head hung in shame! But I hope it works!&amp;quot; Did you base J.P. on anyone you know in real life? &amp;quot;Yeah, I based him a bit on a guy I live with that went to Eton. He&amp;#039;s a very good friend of mine, but does just have slight J.P.-isms every now and again. [It&amp;#039;s] that ability to say something and just offend everyone in the room, but not realise that he&amp;#039;s done it!  &amp;quot;But yeah, [J.P.]&amp;#039;s sort of a heightened version of a lot of people that I knew. There are a lot of J.Ps in the world, so it was really enjoyable to do it, because I&amp;#039;ve met a lot of them and lived with a lot of them. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s one thing I definitely don&amp;#039;t want from this. It&amp;#039;s worrying me even more than critics or people disliking me and telling me that I&amp;#039;m bad - all of that, I can probably take. The one thing I will not be able to handle is if the real-life J.Ps - people from Made in Chelsea and stuff - see him as a sort of figurehead. I do not want to be their hero, so hopefully that won&amp;#039;t happen!&amp;quot;   So do you almost want him to be disliked? &amp;quot;I think you have to find him funny, but to laugh at, rather than laugh with. That&amp;#039;s the problem. I&amp;#039;m sure that for the most part that will happen - people will laugh at him, because he&amp;#039;s an idiot. And that&amp;#039;s good, that&amp;#039;s good laughter! But I&amp;#039;m worried there will be some people who watch him and go, &amp;#039;Ha - classic banter!&amp;#039; People who use the word &amp;#039;banter&amp;#039; will watch J.P. and [love him].&amp;quot; Did you ever get to do any improvisation on set? &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s so many little tics that I tried to get into it. Just these things that you hear people saying, and I love it when I watch it back and see a little tidbit that has got into the end. There&amp;#039;s quite a lot [of words] that you hear people say - &amp;#039;banter&amp;#039; is one of them, and &amp;#039;hooned&amp;#039; referring to getting drunk. &amp;quot;Who says &amp;#039;hooned&amp;#039;?! It&amp;#039;s a stupid word. &amp;#039;Cringe&amp;#039; as well - in the last couple of episodes, I say that all the time. A lot of these [type of] people can&amp;#039;t be bothered to actually show emotion so they just say it.&amp;quot; Is it difficult sticking to script when you&amp;#039;re used to performing your own material? &amp;quot;Yeah, it is a hard thing when you first do it, having to be strict to the text and constantly wanting to go off on a flight of fancy. But if anyone&amp;#039;s going to haul you into doing it, it&amp;#039;s going to be Sam and Jesse. I imagine if I was doing a comedy script that I wasn&amp;#039;t 100% confident in, I would be constantly trying to change it and be funny. But because they&amp;#039;re so good, I&amp;#039;ve got complete and utter trust in them.  &amp;quot;You just think that what they&amp;#039;ve written - award-winning Peep Show - is probably better than something I could come up with in the moment! I just add the odd &amp;#039;banter&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;cringe&amp;#039; here and there, and that&amp;#039;ll do!&amp;quot; Fresh Meat begins on Wednesday at 10pm on Channel 4. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/interviews/a340519/jack-whitehall-fresh-meat-interview-i-play-a-posh-idiot/>