Romesh Ranganathan interview: ‘I don’t want to be this vegan who’s talking about mental health. But I might as well be honest’ The stand-up comedian on death, therapy and dealing with his mother

A week after his father died, Romesh Ranganathan did stand-up at Up the Creek in Greenwich. He knew it was mad but he wanted to get back to it and besides, he needed the money. It was nearly Christmas, which meant the audience were particularly rowdy and as he began, so did the racist heckles.

“I performed the whole lot without acknowledging I was having ‘bud bud ding ding’ repeated at me from the front row,” writes Ranganathan in his new book. “If that bloke reads this, which is unlikely, well played. You’re a prick.”

‘It feels slightly unfortunate. I don’t want to be somebody who is on everything’ i's TV newsletter: what you should watch next Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

That was in 2011. Ranganathan had decided to quit his job as a maths teacher to go full-time in comedy a few weeks earlier; he had three more days of school to go when his father died of a heart attack. Suddenly, he was a jobless father of one, in charge of sorting out his father’s finances, not least keeping his pub, the Prince of Wales in East Grinstead, afloat.

“It turned out my dad’s financial situation was a complete house of cards. He was mortgaged up to the eyeballs, the pub wasn’t making as much money as we thought, it was a real mess,” he says.

“And in hindsight, I went full time [with comedy] a bit early. I wasn’t regularly getting work and my Dad passing away meant I wasn’t hustling, trying to get more. The combination meant we were broke. For a while, we couldn’t pay the bills.”

Seven years on, we are sitting in Up the Creek on a cold winter morning as crates of beers are wheeled in and a man fiddles with the sound system. Ranganathan, in a sharp shirt and box-fresh trainers, is puffing on a vape and, though he would likely roll his eyes at the notion, reflecting on how much has changed. It’s quite a lot.

This year, he has written and starred in his first sitcom, The Reluctant Landlord, launched a docuseries, Just Another Immigrant, in America, published a book, travelled to the Arctic Circle and Mongolia for a new series of his travelogue The Misadventures of…, filmed numerous other television shows and topped 1.25 million listens on his podcast, Hip Hop Saved My Life.

“I’ve got a few things on at the moment,” he says, dry as dust. “TV is so fickle it won’t be like this forever, because it’s not like this for almost everybody.” If that sounds like a typically Eeyore-ish thing for the comedian to say, in fact Ranganathan is far more smiley and genial than his comic persona – which sits somewhere between curmudgeon and grouse – suggests he might be.

“I’m fully aware that comedy isn’t a complete meritocracy. You just take the chances that you’re given. I’ve been very lucky but then you become really paranoid. I don’t want to be that guy where everyone is thinking, ‘How did he win the lottery?’” he says. “It feels slightly unfortunate. I don’t want to be somebody who is on everything.”

Ranganathan grew up in Crawley, West Sussex where he still lives because if he moved, his mother would kill him. He was, as per the very first line of his memoir, Straight Outta Crawley, a “fat child”, which, combined with a lazy right eye caused by an infection when he was three years old, was briskly character-forming. “I genuinely don’t think I’d be a comedian if I hadn’t had it,” he says.

Aged 40, he still has “massive issues” with his appearance. “I never go out and think I look good. I don’t agonise over it but on occasion I do, in the summer, just wish I could go out with a t-shirt and jeans on and actually feel alright.” These days, he is vegan and exercises, “but not to look amazing, to stop looking really shit,” he grimaces. “I just think, ‘if you don’t exercise, this could get worse.’”

‘In Sri Lankan culture, mental illness isn’t well dealt with. I was cagey when I first did therapy – I kept it a secret’

Growing up, he was “obsessed” with comedy. He did his first gig, aged 9, at Pontins, Camber Sands, where he performed – in a Sri Lankan accent that wasn’t his own – a set of broadly anti-Irish jokes he’d found in a book. He didn’t do stand-up again until he was 31 years old.

After a Master’s in Economics at London’s Birkbeck College, he got a job working as a cost analyst for an airline catering company in Gatwick. He hated it and suffered a brief bout of depression. He had first tried therapy as a student when he was offered six free sessions, “and I’ve dipped in and out of it ever since,” he says. “It’s like going to get your hair cut.”

Earlier this year, he became an ambassador for the mental health charity, Calm, following the suicide of a close friend. “I worried about talking about it,” he says. “I’m a cynical comic. And in Sri Lankan culture, mental illness isn’t well dealt with. I was cagey when I first did it – I kept it a secret. I don’t want to be this vegan guy who’s suddenly talking openly about mental health. I don’t want to be that box-ticker. But I might as well be honest about it. ”

While at Gatwick, he saw an advert for a graduate teaching scheme – and a way out. He ended up a trainee at his old school, Hazelwick. He loved teaching and was torn about leaving to pursue stand-up. “Part of me was thinking, ‘this is one of the least noble things anybody can do – leave education to be paid to say their thoughts.’”

He met his future wife Leesa, a drama teacher, at Hazelwick. When he was starting out in comedy, she would drive him from gig to gig, sometimes feeding their baby at the back. On the way home, she would give him notes – “little things, like the way I paced, or that I touched my glasses too much. Horrible for the ego but much more useful than somebody saying, ‘that was great.’”

His father was another formative influence. “All of the edge in my humour comes from my Dad,” says Ranganathan. He remembers him standing in the living room, whisky in hand, regaling his Tamil friends with routines. “He was unoffendable, hugely offensive and just didn’t give a shit about upsetting anybody. Much to the embarrassment of my mum.”

‘Within a few months, the house got repossessed, Dad went to prison, and Mum and Dad split up’

When Ranganathan was around 12 years old, his “very, very comfortable” family life took a turn. His father, an accountant turned “Sri Lankan Del Boy”, ran out of money, took his sons out of private school, moved the family to a rented house and then left to go and live with another woman. Shortly after, he was arrested for fraud and sentenced to two years in prison. Romesh, his brother and mother were sent to live in a council B&B.

“We were never homeless, it could have been worse. But the reason it felt so shocking was because it happened so quickly. Within a few months, the house got repossessed, Dad went to prison, and Mum and Dad split up.”

Does what happened shape his work ethic now? “I didn’t think that, but I think probably, yes… I’ve had two periods in my life where I didn’t have anything.” The other was following his father’s death, which inspired The Reluctant Landlord which has just finished on Sky One and has already been commissioned for a second series. Would his father have found it funny? “I think he’d want it to be swearier, dirtier, maybe have some sex in it.”

‘My perception of the circuit is that it’s much more difficult for women than it is for ethnic minorities’

Next year he is going on tour with a new show, The Cynic’s Mixtape. He thinks the comedy circuit is more diverse than it used to be, although he still gets racist heckles and increasing amounts of abuse online. “But you can dismiss that,” he says. “My perception of the circuit is that it’s much more difficult for women than it is for ethnic minorities.

“My gigs haven’t been more difficult because I’m Asian. I’ve seen women have gigs that are more difficult because they’re women. I’ve seen people say, ‘I don’t normally find women funny’”.

Both women and ethnic minorities are still subject to howls about tokenism, though. “Are people over-actively looking to diversify their line-ups? Yes. Do I think that is a necessary evil, given you haven’t dealt with it up to this point? Yeah I do. It’s never going to be perfect. You’re correcting something, there’s going to be a lurch. We haven’t got time for it to wait for it to naturally level up.

“People still joke about whether Nish [Kumar, a fellow stand-up] or I are going to do a job. Asian comedy is not a genre, in the same way that female comedy is not a genre. It would be great if we could have diverse line-ups without anybody commenting on it. You can moan about it if you want but it’s pointless because this is how it’s going to be – and you can fucking like it or lump it.”

He and Leesa have three sons now – Theo, Alex and Charlie – to whom he is a doting but “inconsistent” father, the soft touch (despite his frequent jokes at their expense), partly because he is away so much. After tonight’s “Christmas” special in the Arctic (“a very, very cold place with no beaches and no sun loungers”) a new series of Misadventures… is due next year for which he will travel to Mongolia, Zimbabwe, Colombia and Bosnia.

His swerve into travelogues was a complete accident, he says: in real life, he is not intrepid at all. “I’ve got three places I go to on rotation – Portugal, Disneyland and Butlins, Bognor Regis.”

Last year he took his whole family to LA to film a new series for Showtime. Just Another Immigrant, which comes to Sky One in January and follows his attempts to break America. Did he manage it? “No.”

He is an enormous fan of American comedy – a tattoo of Richard Pryor covers his entire right forearm – though American audiences were harder to love. “There was a bit in my last show where I said I would join Isis if they had good wifi. When I did it in Britain, people would laugh because it’s such a ridiculous thing. Even saying the word ‘Isis’ in America immediately injects such a level of tension into the room that you almost can’t save it.”

‘My mum combines boosting your self-esteem in that regard to shitting on your self-esteem about your personal appearance’

His mother, Shanthi, went too, of course. Much to Ranganathan’s dismay (his most frequent heckle is now “where’s your mum?”), she was the breakout star of his original docuseries, Asian Provocateur, in which he travelled to Sri Lanka to meet his family. She still works in the local sorting office where she is something of a celebrity. “She certainly does not mind being recognised,” he deadpans.

She loved The Reluctant Landlord, even though she didn’t get to play herself in it. “She thinks it’s the best thing that’s ever been created.” Does she say that about all your work? “Correct. Everything I do.

“It’s weird, she combines boosting your self-esteem in that regard to shitting on your self-esteem about your personal appearance. I do a TV thing and she’ll say, ‘you were really funny. But why did you wear that?'” He sighs. “‘It made you look so fat.’”

‘The Christmas Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan’ is on BBC2 tonight at 9pm; ‘Just Another Immigrant’ is on Sky One on 16 January; Romesh Ranganathan’s ‘Straight Outta Crawley’ is out now (Bantam, £20)