People say that I'm quite grumpy and negative on stage and that I surely can't be like that off it, but I really am.
— Romesh Ranganathan
The experience of watching other standups is either: 1) you see your mate doing standup and it's really bad and you're heartbroken, or 2) You see your mate doing really well and it's heartbreaking.
I'm hugely negative, so if a joke doesn't land it takes me a long time to get over it. If something doesn't go well I go dark in my head. Basically I start thinking it should be illegal for me to be doing comedy.
My family is all obsessed with comedy. I grew up watching a lot of comedy in the house. I used to watch Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy with my dad. But my mom is more into slapstick stuff.
I tend to be melodramatic and super self-involved.
The key to a happy marriage is myself being absent for long periods of time. My wife Leesa and I will celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary next year, but if my comedy gigs petered out and I was around the house more, we'd 100% be getting divorced.
I've had a Hindu upbringing. There's a lot about it I think is cool. Temples are amazing. It's a nice vibe when people are praying. And there's lots about it where I understand why they believe those things. But I'm not practising.
I don't believe in make-or-break moments in your life. If you screw something up, it can knock you down, but that only means you'll be better when you get back to where you were before.
When I started doing stand-up, I resigned from my job as a maths teacher and, three days before I was due to leave, my dad passed away.
Our house was repossessed and we lived in a B&B until we got a council house. It was a struggle, but Mum just got her head down, found cleaning jobs and never complained. I owe her a lot, so I now do everything she says.
I have a hip-hop podcast and get to meet all these rappers I love, so I feel very lucky.
In the 10 years I've been with my wife we've probably argued twice.
When I first started watching stand-up, I fell in love with American comedy before British comedy.
Teaching is so solid and reliable, comedy is not.
Actually, the reason I'm a huge Arsenal fan is because when my dad moved over from Sri Lanka, he lived in north London and fell in love with Arsenal. Then he moved to East Grinstead and bought a pub, which he turned into an Arsenal pub.
I used to do standup about footballers; they are easy targets because they are traditionally seen as stupid.
I chose to be a maths teacher because I thought the marking would be easy. You'd just tick and cross, whereas if you're an English teacher, you've got to read essays. Then they said I had to analyse the methodology. It takes an eternity, it's insane!
I want to say things on stage that I wouldn't have the guts to say in conversation.
What I'm like with lack of sleep is that I let the devil in, so if I'm tired the slightest thing will put me into a bad place.
My parents are super westernized. My mom listens to western music, my dad was like a pub landlord so he properly embraced English life. But the truth is they both came from tiny villages in Sri Lanka.
I did a gig as a standup when I was eight years old. I went on holiday with my family to this holiday camp and they had a talent competition and I entered as a standup.
I know you're supposed to love yourself, but I really hate the way I look. When I look in the mirror I'm so disgusted by the chocolate blancmange abomination staring back at me, I actually apologise to my wife for my physical appearance. I've got no backside, an overhanging belly and I'm so disproportionate.
I just write what I think is funny, or interesting, and hopefully everything else will take care of itself. There's no strategy to anything.
My beard is just an ongoing effort to hide my face as much as possible.
There is a magical, unexplainable phenomenon that still occurs to this day where, however funny you think the material you've written is, as soon as you turn up to a gig to try it out, it becomes almost incoherent.
Mum came to Crawley from Sri Lanka at 19 after marrying my dad. Later, Dad had financial problems and they split for a while.
We are entering an age where people can claim to know more about what really happened than the people who were there. Where people will dismiss eyewitness accounts, on the basis of their gut feelings; where they will refute scientific discoveries because the scientist just doesn't look trustworthy.
It's such a privileged thing to say, but I'm still that same lazy person!
I mean, my stand-up is very honest and exposing in this way. I probably carry that into everything I do.
I've always loved American stand-up. Richard Pryor is one of the main reasons I got into stand-up. After Pryor, I made my way through the other great American comics, then finally got into the British ones over here.
One day, I brought home Eddie Murphy's 'Raw', and Dad and I would watch that together.
The contrast of being in the spotlight when you're very young and then suddenly not can be really bad for your mental state.
There's nothing less funny than somebody trying to be funny. I loved Jack Dee, then I met him and I became the least funny human to exist because of my desperation to say something amusing.
I loved stand-up, but I never thought you could do it as a job.
I've done bits where I've perhaps talked about my kids annoying me and you hope that the audience realise that you do actually love your children. You can still be a good parent and be frustrated by your kids.
People who are comfortable in their own skin I admire, but you don't know what's really going on. If you meet someone who says they nail being a human, they are as far away from nailing it as a human as you can possibly imagine.
I worry about my children, actually. I'm trying to give them a decent upbringing but I sometimes worry that that means they're going to be kind of mediocre adults. Like maybe I should throw them out for a bit and give them some adversity.
If you're racist and you come out and say it's because of Brexit, then great. Then I know definitely not to talk to you, rather than you give me a sideways glance in a shop. Now I know, I've seen your Facebook post.
To avoid depression while travelling, I always take loads of items that make me feel connected with home. I can't even explain the joy I felt when I realised I'd remembered to pack my vanilla and mango scented beard oil. The feeling of euphoria was similar to my kids being born.
My mum's very spiritual, and I think she just tells everyone that I'm spiritual, too.
You can be good at comedy, which means you'll be given spots, but beyond that it is luck that pushes you to the next level. There are loads of brilliant comedians who haven't had the breaks, and plenty of average comedians who have.
Years later, when I was working as a trolley wally in a supermarket, I tackled the boredom by talking to the customers in as many different accents as I could manage. I started with one that I didn't think would alert any suspicion - generic Asian - then moved on to Irish, Welsh, Australian and American.
I strive for honesty because I think that's where the funniest stuff comes from.
Social media has exacerbated a trend whereby people speak with complete authority on every subject, regardless of how informed they are.
I was a teacher before comedy, but it was good because no two days were the same, which this job is too.
What we're increasingly seeing is comics are becoming better known across the world. They're recording shows wherever they are, then putting them online for everyone. It has definitely changed in that way.
My mum's financial plan is: Romesh becomes a millionaire.
I have Asian friends - second generation - and I am the worst in terms of being in touch with my heritage.
David Beckham is always seen as the thickest man on the planet, too daft to complete a jigsaw puzzle. But then you watch old footage of him playing and every time he plays a ball across the field, he's intuitively working out the trajectory of the ball.
People assume that your audience is full of people who love you. But, typically, it's one person in four who's chosen to come and has convinced some other people to go with them.
