Romesh Ranganathan, comedian and broadcaster

0:00BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:52My castaway this week is the comedian Romesh Ranganathan. He's a BAFTA-winning broadcaster, a stand-up actor and writer who's been a fixture on British TV screens for the past decade. His travelogues have taken him from the Arctic to the Sahara and he's tried everything from wrestling to opera singing with his good friend Rob Beckett in Rob and Ramesh Versus. He starred in his own sitcom and in 2021 followed in the footsteps of Anne Robinson to host The Weakest Link. That's before we even get to the international comedy tours, best-selling books and bringing his love of hip-hop to Radio 2. It's almost as if he's making up for lost time and who can blame him?

1:29He was born and raised in Crawley and came to stand-up in his 30s. after a career as a maths teacher and starting a family. The early days were a struggle. At one point, he was too skint to retrieve his car from the pound after it was repossessed. Eventually, his star began to rise. He says, contentment is not good for comedy. If I suddenly became happy, then I think I'd have to quit. But luckily, I'm a hugely pessimistic, negative person, so I can't imagine that's going to happen any time soon. Romesh Ranganathan, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much for having me. I'm quite slightly nervous, actually.

2:01Oh, really? That's not like you. I know. Well, it's just like sort of talking about... I mean, I do talk a lot. It's my job. But, like, talking about myself like this. Shoes on the other foot. There are two microphones on stage, metaphorically speaking. Absolutely, yeah. OK, so let's start with that discontentment that I just mentioned because you do play the misanthrope on stage. Yeah. But in person, you strike me as somebody who absolutely loves what they do. Talk me through those two personalities. Basically, a lot of people say to me that they think I'm putting on an act when I'm on stage.

2:30but actually I think I'm picking on an act when I'm off stage. And what I mean by that is when I'm doing stand-up I am saying what I think unfiltered and obviously there's comic exaggeration but actually I'm not worried about the social repercussions of what I'm saying when I'm delivering it on stage. You know, the sweet spot for me has always been when you say something that you're slightly nervous to express and you can feel the audience resonate with that. OK, can you give me an example of that? One of the examples that became so solonious for me that I actually became worried about my second child, and I'll tell you why.

3:05It's because I did this bit where I said our first child was so great and so easy, and then the second one came along. I was just like, why did we have another kid? He's terrible. This is horrible. Because you couldn't get him to do what you wanted to do. I read all the stuff, Lauren, about you give them choices and you let them have agency in there. And I'd say to my eldest son, you can have this or you can have this. And this is the reason why we think you should have this. And you go, I think I'm going to have this, Daddy. And you go, great. I can't believe people think parenting's hard. And then we had our second kid.

3:40He can have this, he can have this. These are the two options. I don't want either. I want this. And you go, well, we don't have this. But that's what I want. I hate you. So I talked about that on stage. And people come up to me and go, there's a mate like, I think this, but I didn't realise you were allowed to say it out loud. And so I'm hoping that the audience know that I love my children. But within that understanding, that solid context, they say, it can be really annoying. This is really annoying. So I talked about this in my last show, about how I sort of regret doing that bit. Because people would come up to me at Chessington and go, is this the one?

4:15And then you go, dude, you can't. And has he seen it? Yeah, he's seen it. He loves it. I mean, he thinks it's made him like a cult hero with his friends. To be fair, from the character sketch that you gave, it's a kid who knows who he is. Yeah, exactly. He's not going to have a problem. He's going to be a great adult, but just as a kid, yeah, he's a rock star. Talking of your family, they often feature in your comedy. So obviously, you talk about your family, your wife and three sons on stage, your mum, Shanti, she's appeared with you on TV, and your brother's a comic too. You've described comedy as the family's love language.

4:50Tell me more about that. What we do have in common is just this kind of dark mickey-taking out of everything. There is no safe space, whatever, however sad something is, let's find the funny in it. Obviously, we know you love music, you know, two shows on Radio 2 to prove it. How has it been choosing your discs? It's been tricky. My mum and, to a lesser degree, my dad, are really into music. And they always had parties and music was always playing in our house. And then I discovered hip-hop. but my one thing I would say is that I did such a deep dive into hip-hop that there are big gaps in my musical knowledge elsewhere.

5:27I think I was so... There was a point in my life where I think for about three years I only listened to stuff that was made on one street in New York. I really got so niche with, I'm really into this specific type of hip-hop, I don't want to hear anything else. What's that? It's got a snare. No, thank you. That's commercial. Sell out. Yeah, exactly. So what's your first disc, Romesh? It's Lose Yourself, Eminem. The song is he's about to... Well, he doesn't actually get specific about it, but in context of the film, its soundtrack, he is about to get involved in a rap battle. You've taken part in rap battles in the past.

6:07Yeah, it was bad, Lauren. And it was at the Scala in King's Cross. I think I got to the penultimate round of the battle. I can tell you the lyric... Oh, yeah, yes, please. that led to my immediate exit from the competition. This is Ranga rocking at the Scala. You can't handle the heat of my chicken tikka masala. So anyway, I lost... Immediately I was asked to leave. Not asked to leave. You know, I was out of the competition. And as I was leaving, it was like... I imagined it like a movie. Like, there'd be a camera on... You know when you have a... They've strapped a camera to the actor's head and it's facing down at them.

6:44Yeah. And they're just, like, walking through, like, really morose. that's how it felt I'm walking through the crowd and they were shouting that's pathetic chicken tikka masala that's a really mild curry you know all that kind of stuff and then I decided I'm never going to do it again I think we should probably hear a professional now

7:31Eminem and lose yourself. So, Romesh Ranganathan, let's go back to the beginning. You were born in Crawley, West Sussex, in 1978. Now, your given name is actually Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan. Has anybody ever called you that? Everybody called me Romesh. That was my name. but every time a teacher would say the first register of the year their first one I'd have to go actually can you call me Romesh Was that how you found out at school? Yes but the whole idea that you would change your name to make people in Britain feel more comfortable that feels so ridiculous when you say it now but my parents are obviously in a position then when they'd just come over to England from Sri Lanka and they were like we're bringing up kids over here how do we make it easier for them?

8:14So your parents, originally from Sri Lanka, and they were Tamil, they came to the UK a few years before you were born. What was life like for Tamil people in Sri Lanka in the run up to them leaving? There's lots of horrible stories of mistreatment of members of my family purely because of a tamar. My dad's eldest brother was taken away by soldiers and we never saw him again. My auntie, my dad's sister's husband, was shot dead on his doorstep by soldiers. I feel like that was all simmering, but my dad came over to England to finish his accountancy qualifications. And partly, I think it was a bit of push and a bit of pull in terms of what brought him over here.

8:54And as you mentioned your dad Ranga was an accountant you've described him as a Sri Lankan dell boy did he have the charm? Yeah my dad was a bit of a tornado in terms of I think he came over to England and like he'd been so used to the Sri Lankan way of life I think it's almost like he was like a kid in a candy store you know like it was people were drinking and going out and he just threw himself into British life wholly and completely and there's a strong argument he should have implemented more boundaries than he did. So what did he embrace? He was the life and soul of the party? He was the life and soul of the party, incredibly flirty.

9:36Difficult to be married to a tornado. Absolutely. So your mum, Shanti, she's got a great sense of humour herself but tell me more about her. What was she doing? Well, if you think about it from my mum's point of view, she was 19, grew up in Sri Lanka, fairly strict upbringing, marries my dad ends up being brought over to a new country and the difference between her experience and my dad's experience is that my dad's going off to work and so you're immediately thrust into social connections and situations and you're making friends just by dint of that's your lifestyle my mum is at home and she's obviously you know she's going to the shops and doing whatever but I sort of think about it now and I think there's a 19 year old girl that had kids in a foreign country.

10:22I don't say this lightly. My mum is like one of my heroes in terms of I feel like if I was to say things in my life that I regret, I think it's not having enough empathy or understanding of her situation. And at first, in your early years, life was pretty good, I think, for the family. Tell me a bit about that. What do you remember about that period? We were living in quite a nice little neighbourhood in Crawley. The way I think of it is like perfect start. The house looks nice. All the neighbours, everyone waves as they're heading off to work. Private school? Private school. So I started off at a private school.

10:57And then, even though my parents are well off, they needed me to get a scholarship to get the fees down in order to afford me going to secondary. It's difficult, isn't it? When people go to another country to set up a life for themselves, I feel, personally, they get very caught up in what the external trappings of success look like. You have to have a nice car. You have to have a nice house. Because it demonstrates that it was all worth it. Exactly. And I think my parents got caught up in that quite heavily. It's time for your second disc. What are we going to hear? Yeah, this is Let's Hear It For The Boy, Denise Williams.

11:36Now, when I was growing up, my mum and dad used to have parties. There's lots of Sri Lankan community in and around us and from London, actually. And they'd all be music like this playing. And then what would happen was that my dad would get increasingly drunk and then he would start to want to sing songs from Sri Lanka. He would get pans from the kitchen and he would turn them upside down and start playing them like drums while singing songs. But I couldn't really discern any words. So he'd be banging on the pans and going...

12:16And then they'd all be reaching that, like all of his mates. The reaching out gesture that you're doing now seems to be quite key to the performance. This is one of those songs that I feel there's a joy in it. I just love the sound of it. With songs like this, you listen to them loads and loads because you want that hit and then it goes away for a bit and then you go, I haven't listened to that song for a while and you put it on and it comes back all over again.

12:42He ain't got much to say But he loves me, loves me, loves me I know that he loves me anyway And maybe he don't dress fine But I don't really mind Cause every time he pulls me in I just wanna cheer Let's hear it for the boy Let's give the boy a hand Denise Williams and Let's Hear It for the Boy. Romesh Ranganathan, family life changed dramatically when you were 12, I think. What happened? My dad had fallen into financial trouble. What it turns out is that he'd lost his job and he was trying to make money in his Sri Lankan, Delboy way and it wasn't working out and couldn't keep up the mortgage payments on their house.

13:37And they couldn't, obviously they couldn't afford, even with my scholarship, they still couldn't afford the fees at the school I was going to. And one morning, my mum said to me, can you and your brother stay here? I'm going out. She looked upset, but I didn't know why, and she wasn't letting on why. Anyway, what turns out is that she'd found out that my dad was seeing another woman and was regularly seeing another woman, actually was intending on living with this woman, but my mum had found out. Now, this is bad, and I will say my mum does regret doing this, but this is what happened. My mum said to me, I've not heard from your dad.

14:14If I take you to this woman's house, can you please ask her where your dad... I don't want to talk to her, but can you ask her where your dad is? So we knock on the door. She answers. I said, where's my dad? We haven't seen him. And she tells us that my dad had been arrested three days previously. And he had been involved in some sort of fraud case. I don't know why we'd not heard, why he'd not got in touch. but this lady knew and we didn't know. Did he go to prison? He ended up going to prison for two years, or just under two years. You know, I remember my dad being convicted and going to prison the day before my birthday.

14:58Which birthday? I think it was my 15th birthday. And so my friends were having, like, a party for me. But I didn't tell them. You didn't cancel the party? No, I just went and pretended that wasn't going on. I guess because you want some normalcy. Everything is falling to bits at home. Because for a while we moved out of that house and then the council gave us a room and a bed and breakfast for a while. So this is with you, your mum and your brother? Yeah, that was all of us in one room for a while. And you kept that secret from your friends? We kept that secret. I remember once a friend's mum, I was trying to make my own way home.

15:38because I didn't want anybody to know where I was living. So I was like, my mate's mum said, I'm going to drop you home. So I just picked a house, a couple of doors down from the bed and breakfast and got her to drop me off there. And she was like waiting for me to go to the house. So you had to do the walk up the path? I think I snuck down the side alley of this, like, just so that they would go. This is obviously, when you're that age, your entire world is your family, school and your home and all those things had changed for you. Yeah. What do you remember of your feelings about all that? It was a really good indication of the difference between how my brother and I processed stuff because my brother became very angry.

16:26What about you? I, on the other hand, pushed it deep, deep inside and became very, very quiet. I think that the mental toll of that on my brother me and my mum you know my mum was the saddest I've ever seen her and I never want to see her that sad again. I heard her crying so much you know and it was so so horrible and then she found a way to look after us and do the things she had to do in those circumstances. She had to start because you mentioned earlier you know she was at home looking after you to did she get a job Yeah, so she got a job as a cleaner. We live near this industrial estate, so she got a job as a cleaner.

17:10And on top of that, she was dealing with two teenage boys who were horrendous and did all of the things that teenage boys do, which has been incredibly ungrateful for any effort that's been expended on them whatsoever. Blame the person that's there rather than the person that isn't for what's going on. All of those things, she had to put up with all of that. Shanty, what a queen. I know, absolutely. I think we should have some more music, Ramesh. your third choice today. What are we going to hear next? Well, this is Huey Lewis and the News, The Power of Love. It makes me feel better. So I'm with an agency off the kerb.

17:47They booked me for a gig in Essex, Hornchurch, actually, and it was the first time I'd done 20 minutes. I was incredibly nervous. It was at this theatre, but it wasn't in the theatre. It was in the foyer of the theatre. They put chairs in the foyer. So I thought, what a funny thing it would be to just comment on the fact we're in the foyer and we're not even in the theatre. I thought it was a great opener. And I was very excited. Something along the lines of, I was very excited about coming to this theatre. I didn't realise they were just going to stick us in the foyer. Anyway, it turns out the people of Hornchurch love that foyer, right?

18:17That got nothing. I then proceeded to play to silence. To the point where I said, thank you, I've been Rommershwang and Nathan. I don't remember them applauding. I'm pretty sure, in my mind, in my memory, it's you could hear the mic click into the stand. Total silence. I walk off. One of the comics goes, how do you think that went? That's a kiss of death. When another comedian says to you, how do you think that went? I can tell you, badly. Anyway, I get into the car, in my head, I'm thinking, that's it. It's over. I'm done. How do I make myself feel better? I put on Power of Love by Huey Lewis in the news.

18:55I get to the end of the song. I still feel a bit sad. So I put it back to the beginning. I'll listen to it again. long story long I listened to that song over and over again for an hour and 45 minutes the power of love is a curious thing make a one man weep make another man sing change a heart to a little white dove more than a feeling that's the power of love

19:28tough with the diamonds Rich like cream Stronger and harder Than a bad girl's dream Make a bad one good Hughie Lewis and the News and the power of love. Romesh Ranganathan, your dad was released from prison and after that he came back to the family. How did his return affect things and how did you feel about it? It was tricky because he'd been away for a bit. My mum had been looking after us And also now he's trying to come back and be dad. How did that go? Well, you know, I had one of my worst ever conversations I've ever had. I say conversation, it was a monologue from me. But basically I was at university.

20:13And I come home for the weekend. So obviously your parents are excited to see you and then gone out with friends from back home and then not said when I'm going to be back and got back quite late. And then I walked in and my dad said, you need to tell us when you're going to come back. and then I turned around and delivered a monologue at my father. Basically, it started with something along the lines of, you have got some nerve telling me what I need to do in this house and then just went into one about what I thought about his behaviour, how I thought about how he treated mum, how I think about how he treated us, how he thinks he can just waltz back into the house and suddenly he's going to be back to normal.

20:54Proper, proper, disrespectful rant. and we never spoke about it again. Did you regret saying it? I regret saying it in the way that I did. I think that I can't imagine if one of my kids turned around to me and said those things that I said to my dad, I think it would create a scar that would never heal for me. But then there's also, isn't there, for being the kid who wasn't expressing how angry they'd been when your dad left, who'd kept it all in, in a way your parents might have been relieved to see you say it all at last Yes, I totally agree with you but the thing is on my dad's 60th birthday by that time our relationship had really kind of improved I'd had kids at that point and I saw the way that my dad was being with my children and I was like, this is like, I think I've ever seen this side of my dad and we're in a really good place and I write in my card I really feel lucky to have a dad like you thank you so much for being such a great dad and he looked emotional and he said to me do you really think that about me that made me feel incredibly sad because then I thought I think that my dad in between me saying what I said to him that night and him opening that card I think he's thought that I think he's not a good dad and that isn't what I thought about him the case is I think you're flawed as we all are and I think you made some errors but you're a great guy and I love you and my memory of my dad is of like as I said a flawed tornado and he was so supportive of you in your stand up I mean he would come to all the gigs he would often put them on when he owned a pub for a bit and he would let you put gigs on in the pub he was amazing he'd come to every one of my gigs and he would sit at the back with a big like pitcher of lager and just watch and give me honest feedback afterwards.

22:55He died in 2011. So he saw the beginning of your stand-up career, but not the take-off. He was there for the frenetic wheels. He was there for the failure. He was there for the bit where nobody thought it was going to work. Except him. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So what do you think he would have been proudest of, of all the things that you've achieved since? I think he probably would have been the proudest of doing stuff with Mum. from our point of view as a family we were so struggling financially and we didn't know what was going on to then think that now my mum has kind of become a sort of celebrity cult comedy heroine yeah basically one of the safest hands in British comedy I think he would have been really proud I think he would have been annoyed that it wasn't him to be honest with you but I think he would have been proud Romesh let's have some more music your fourth choice to do My fourth choice is by Kanye West.

23:52This song is Through the Wire. You know, his recent behaviour has led to, you know, I am no longer, I've disavowed myself of his work. But at the time when this came out, the song is he got into a car accident and his jaw is wide shut. All of the vocals on this song, him rapping with his jaw wide shut, he is reflecting on the fact that he came so close to dying and now he's going to try and make it and it was like a breakout song for him. And I remember I was about to do this competition, Leicester Mercury, Comedian of the Year, and when I was about to go and do the gig, I was done with comedy.

24:37I was like, I'm not making any money from this, we're struggling. So I phoned Lisa and I said, Lisa, I'm going to Leicester to do this competition, I don't know why I'm going to go back to teaching She said to me Rom, go and do the competition Then come back And we'll have a talk about it And I went to do the competition And I won the competition And that is my through the wire moment Unfortunately it's not that cool To do a song where you go I did the Lester Mercury competition I thought I wasn't going to win it But I did You know that's not Nobody wants to hear that tune So let's hear this one instead Yo, G, they can't stop me from rapping, can they?

25:15Can they hop? I spit it through the wire, man.

25:23There's too much stuff on my heart right now, man. I gladly risk it all right now. It's a life or death situation, man. Y 'all don't really understand how I feel right now, man. It's your boy Kanye Titter. Shut down, what's going on? Kanye West and Through the Wire. So, Romesh Ranganathan, you have been very honest about problems that you've had with mental health over the years. When did you first realise that actually you were struggling a bit? When I was coming up to doing my A-levels, I wasn't in a headspace doing my A-levels and I wasn't going to get the results I wanted. And I drafted my suicide note.

26:06I was like I don't want to be here I don't want to be here anymore I used to think about how I'm going to do it I went through I've been through in my life a number of periods of suicide ideation which is where I'm fantasising about it and I want to do it and the best way of describing it is for me personally is that But when I thought about it, I thought about it in the same way that you might think about going on holiday. I'd be like, that'd be so good. I won't feel like this anymore. And other people, it would be better for other people. You know, like I just really would deep fantasize about it.

26:51And as I speak to you now, I feel like I'm probably, this is running close to one of the best places I've ever been in my life mentally. and I think recognizing is half the battle you know so sometimes I just um I just go through a dark period and I know that I've got to do something about it but one of the things I've noticed is when it comes to mental health you do stuff that works right and it's proven to work for you personally and then for some reason you just stop doing it like you just go oh it's really good if I spend some time reflecting or if I run or if I do a bit of reading on this or if I do some breathing exercises that makes me feel better.