ONE of the most media ubiquitous comics in Britain, Romesh Ranganathan has started 2021 with a rather unusual decision for a celebrity: quitting Twitter.
His tweet on January 20, 2021, read: “I don’t like it here anymore so this is my last ever tweet. Goodbye forever! (I’m on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and probably OnlyFans soon)” Dwelling upon this decision and its aftermath in his Guardian column, the 42-year-old said he found the way people speak to each other on it as “unacceptable.” And in typical deadpan style, he adds: “I was tired of the incessant comments about me getting work only because of diversity quotas and political correctness, from people who ignore the fact I couldn’t care less whether it’s talent or initiatives that get me the work: I’m still taking the money.”
Joke apart, Ranganathan was just stating a fact there, as the comedian is on a roll with TV shows, books, comedy tours, award-winning podcast Hip Hop Saved My Life and countless other achievements. Since his TV debut on Live at Apollo in 2012, this Sussex-born star has gone from a secondary school maths teacher to becoming a household name.
His BBC Two show The Ranganation returned for a third season this February, after a second season which has been hailed as one the best lockdown comedy series on TV last year.
Joined by his very own focus group of 20 members of the public, who represent a cross section of modern Britain, the show has seen Ranganathan’s mastery at driving the most insightful, yet hilarious look into contemporary life.
Past discussions have covered such disparate areas as paranormal activity, homeschooling during lockdown, dating apps, whether or not you should wash your legs in the shower, and of course, Trousers Or No Trousers?! The show continues to grow in popularity and series two averaged 1.4 million viewers, a 27 per cent increase from series one.
The show also features his mum Shanti, continuing their association from the BBC Three travel series Asian Provocateur, where she accompanied him on a trip to Sri Lanka, their ancestral country, and later to the North America to meet more of their relatives, and Dave show Judge Romesh, where he used his no-nonsense charm to solve minor disputes in a fictional civil court.
His debut solo tour in 2016, Irrational, has been a standout success, selling over 100,000 tickets. His upcoming tour, The Cynic’s Mixtape, is currently scheduled to begin in June this year, postponed due to pandemic restrictions. The lockdown, however, helped him to hone his writing skills, and in October 2020, he published his second book, As Good As It Gets: Life Lessons from a Reluctant Adult, a hilarious and painfully accurate dissection of what it really means to grow up. His first book, the autobiographical Straight Outta Crawley: Memoirs of a Distinctly Average Human has been a Sunday Times bestseller.
Ranganthan hasn’t shied away from sharing the troubles of his childhood in which his wellearning accountant father left his mum, and was later imprisoned for fraud, which led to the family home being repossessed. His family was totally broke when he started out as a comedian, leaving his job as a school teacher. While that decision saved him, he very much knows attention might not always be on him, but he is sure to keep going as long as it is on him.
