Romesh Ranganathan Interview Ahead Of Sydney Comedy Festival

Romesh Ranganathan Australia Tour interview

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Romesh Ranganathan Australia Tour interview

Catch our in-depth interview with Romesh Ranganathan as he discusses his upcoming Australia tour.

A self-confessed “moody prick”, Romesh Ranganathan has risen through the comedy ranks over the past few years, catching the attention of fans at Edinburgh Festival back in 2010. Since then it’s been a wash of comedy panel shows, Live at The Apollo, comedy tours and TV appearances. Here, Hannah Shakir checks in with Romesh to find out what he’s been up to ahead of his first ever Australia tour of his show, ‘Irrational’ and the Sydney Comedy Festival.

“I’ve just been doing bits and pieces. I’m doing this documentary for Sky One.” He elaborates further that the documentary is actually about boxing. However, he admits that he’s not actually a massive boxing fan, “Me and Rob Beckett, we’re doing this thing on Anthony Joshua because he’s got this heavyweight fight, championship fight with Klitschko, so we’re doing a documentary on that. So, I’ve been doing bits and pieces for that really.” Continuing on the synopsis he explains, “He’s massively into boxing so, he’s sort of my guide to it. But it’s been fun. It’s a bit different but a good laugh.”

Romesh’s trip to Australia will be his very first time setting foot on Aussie soil, and he admits it’s a tad overdue, “It’s got me into a bit of trouble actually because I’ve got family in Australia and I’ve never gone to visit them. And now I’m going for work. It makes me look really bad. It’s genuinely like a thing, do you know what I mean? It’s really bad. So, I’m looking forward to it but also, I feel a bit bad. But what are you going to do?” He moves on to state that his wife and children will also be missing him whilst he’s Downunder and the reasons? “One, is my wife doesn’t really fancy taking three little kids on a flight of that length, but also, she finds me deeply unattractive when I’m doing tour shows. Like, comedians are self-involved anyway but apparently, I become next level, do you know what I mean? So, for the good of our marriage, she’s staying here.”

Often using his family life as a source of inspiration when it comes to his stage act, I probe to see if the comedian ever worries about the impact of including his children in his act will backfire in years to come. “I do actually, to be honest with you. I think it will be a problem. It’s a weird one because I’ve always thought being honest is what I want to do on stage. As I’ve done more stand-up, I’ve become more honest on stage and that’s worked for me. But at the same time, my kids, wife, family and friends didn’t sign up to have themselves poured over in the public eye or on stage or whatever. But at the same time, I get my kids cool stuff. So, if they’ve got a problem with it, I think ‘yeah, but you also got an Xbox. Do you know what I mean? Make a decision, mate.’ But in seriousness, I do think it’s going to be – I’ve got to burn every copy of the DVD basically. There’s only been seven on them anyway so, I don’t think it matters.” Comparing his own mindset as a kid, Romesh continues, “But yeah, it probably will come up at some point. Because teenagers – I was an absolute prick as a teenager. So, when these kids get to teenagers, they’re going to use that against me, aren’t they? They’re going to say ‘you never loved me. Look at what you said on Live at The Apollo. It was horrible.”

Recapping on an interview I read back in 2014 when Romesh said that it was hard to get booked on a show if there was another comedian of colour on the same bill, I ask if it’s still an issue today, “It doesn’t happen now, well it hasn’t happened to me in a long time. But when I started doing the circuit, on more than one occasion you’d be told that – well, you wouldn’t be told, it was just obvious that you wouldn’t get booked if there’s another Asian comedian because Asian Comedy seemed like a genre or something. So, somebody said ‘oh god, we nearly put you on with Paul Sinha.’ And they said ‘thank God we didn’t. That would’ve been a nightmare.’ I was like ‘well, would it?’ Because he’s like a gay doctor, do you know what I mean? I don’t know what the cross-over is there. So, that did happen. But equally, there have been instances where the opposite’s been true and I’ve been booked with these guys. But on more than one occasion, that has come up. I’ve not encountered it recently but it was definitely something I was conscious of. It’s like a running joke, isn’t it? You don’t get more than one woman on a bill, you don’t get more than one brown on a bill. If you get more than one brown on a bill, it’s because it’s a brown bill.”

Romesh Ranganathan Australia Tour Dates

19^th – 23^rd April – Pavillion at Arts Centre Melbourne – Book at Ticketmaster 1300 172 183 www.ticketmaster.com.au

25^th April – Factory Theatre Sydney – Book at Festival Box Office 9020 6966 www.sydneycomedyfest.com.au or Ticketek 132 849 www.ticketek.com.au

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