Funnyman Jack Whitehall is settling down – but not before he heads back out on tour.

The comedian, famed for his hilarious father-son relationship has just started his own journey into fatherhood after welcoming his first baby last week (Tuesday, September 5).

Whitehall, 35, and model partner Roxy Horner, 32, announced the news on Instagram with pictures of the new arrival.

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“It’s very exciting and overwhelming, tiring and emotional,” Whitehall told The Northern Echo ahead of his latest tour.

He’ll arrive in the North East next week for his ‘Settle Down’ tour which charts his journey into adulthood, moving in with Roxy and now welcoming their baby.

He said: “It feels like it’s very much a reflection of where I am in my life and there’s large amounts of life that happened since I toured last so it was always going to be about that even before all of this happened.

“When I started writing last summer it was mainly about settling down in terms of being in a relationship and moving in together so that became the core of the show, then all of this other stuff has happened so it’s been this strange work in progress throughout and I’m just hoping by the final date in Wembley I will have settled down and can put it all to bed.”

Whitehall says he faces a “mad scramble” to write material on his new arrival ahead of heading out on tour. “I think it’s always quite good to have that kind of refresher with a tour,” he said.

“There’s already a couple of little routines I’ve jotted down and some thoughts and ideas that I’ve had so it will be nice to start peppering them into the set.

“You are writing stuff all the time and I did the first leg of this tour last December then found out Roxy was pregnant. I wrote a load of material about that but couldn’t talk about it for ages.

“I did this whole American tour where I had to allude to it in not a particularly subtle manner, then when we announced it there were loads of people on Twitter going 'I knew you were having a baby it was so obvious from everything you said!' - all women that had been at my show none of the men had a clue because there was absolutely no male intuition at all!”

The Northern Echo: Jack Whitehall on stage.Jack Whitehall on stage. (Image: ANDREW COOPER)

But despite his iconic relationship with his dad Michael, Jack is keen not to slip into his ways – apart from being a big fan of the dad joke.

“Hopefully I’ll not be that kind of dad but it’s a slippery slope isn’t it. I am on the lookout to make sure none of those Michael Whitehall trademarks ping in.

“I think I’ve always made dad jokes but in the old days I’d do a joke, it’d get a groan from the audience, and I’d go 'I shouldn’t do that again' and I’d cut it. Now I do the joke, I get the groan and i love it. I think that’s when you know you’ve gone full-blown dad.”

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Jack said he’s looking forward to playing before the “great audiences” of the North East.

The comic continued: “I’ve never played in Stockton, but I’ve played Scarborough once back in the day at the open air theatre and everyone was there in their kagools.”

Whitehall plays the Grand Hall in Scarborough on September 27 and two shows at Stockton’s Globe on September 29.