Romesh Ranganathan

His style of comedy is deadpan and often self-deprecating.

Romesh Ranganathan
Ranganathan in October 2013
Born	Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan (1978-03-27) 27 March 1978 (age 46) Crawley, England
Education	Birkbeck, University of London (BSc)
Occupations	Comedian presenter actor
Years active	2013–present
Spouse	Leesa Ranganathan
Children	3
Website	romeshranganathan.co.uk

Ranganathan has made numerous appearances on television comedy panel shows and has been a regular panellist on The Apprentice: You're Fired!, Play to the Whistle, and The Museum of Curiosity. He completed his first major tour, Irrational Live, in 2016; he performed in large venues such as the Hammersmith Apollo. In 2018, he joined A League of Their Own as a regular panellist. He has presented comedy programmes Judge Romesh and The Ranganation, as well as starring in the travel programme The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan. His autobiography, Straight Outta Crawley, was released in 2018. He began hosting the revival of The Weakest Link in 2021.

In 2020, Ranganathan won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Features for The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan. In 2021, he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance for The Ranganation.

Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan was born in Crawley on 27 March 1978, the son of Sri Lankan Tamil parents Ranga and Sivashanthini Ranganathan. He was raised Hindu. He suffered from an eye infection as a child that left him with a drooping eyelid and lazy eye on his right side. From 1990 to 1992, he was educated at Reigate Grammar School. He then attended Crawley's Hazelwick School, before studying mathematics at Birkbeck, University of London.

Before beginning his comedy career, Ranganathan worked as a mathematics teacher at both Hazelwick School and The Beacon School in Banstead. He also engaged in freestyle rap under the stage name Ranga, once reaching the finals of the UK freestyle competition. He began performing comedy whilst still employed as a teacher.

 

Ranganathan started presenting Newsjack on Radio 4 Extra in March 2014. He appeared on The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice in 2014, during which he presented his home-made vegan chocolate brownies.

Ranganathan has been a guest on several episodes of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. He co-presented It's Not Rocket Science (2016) alongside Rachel Riley and Ben Miller. He also has appeared on Would I Lie to You?, Holby City, Soccer AM, Russell Howard's Good News, Sweat the Small Stuff, The Last Leg, Virtually Famous, Have I Got News for You, QI, and Mock the Week. He was a contestant on the first series of Taskmaster and also appeared in the third episode of Jon Richardson Grows Up. He also performed at the Royal Variety Performance in 2015 and presented the BBC Three series Asian Provocateur later that year, in which he travelled to Sri Lanka to explore his ancestry.

In 2018, Ranganathan joined Season 13 of A League of Their Own and starred in his own ten-episode docu-comedy called Just Another Immigrant that premiered on Showtime June 8.

Ranganathan's autobiography, Straight Outta Crawley, was published in 2018. In 2020, he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Features for The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan. In 2021, he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance for The Ranganation. In December 2021, he began hosting the revival of The Weakest Link, replacing Anne Robinson.

Romesh hosts a weekly radio show called For The Love of Hip-Hop on BBC Radio 2. In 2023, it won an Audio and Radio Industry Award for Best Specialist Music Show. On April 20, 2024, he replaced Claudia Winkleman as the host of the lunchtime Saturday BBC Radio 2 show.

Ranganathan continues to live in Crawley. He met his wife, Leesa, while working at Hazelwick School; she was a drama teacher and he was a mathematics teacher. They have three sons together.

Ranganathan has always gone by the name Romesh; he discovered on his first day of school that, as stated on his birth certificate, his first name is actually Jonathan and Romesh is his middle name. During his live show Irrational, he recalled that his Sri Lankan immigrant parents explained to him that they did this out of concern that his name would otherwise sound too "ethnic" when applying for jobs as an adult, prompting him to point out the absurdity of such logic because his English first name would always be immediately followed by "Ranganathan".

Ranganathan was a vegetarian until going vegan in 2013. He is a supporter of Arsenal FC. He has discussed his "obsession" with tattoos and currently sports tattoos with the names of his sons alongside images of Richard Pryor, Nas, the Roots, the flag of Albania, and the Autobot logo.

Film

Television

Stand-up

Books

Music

Guest appearances

• Mock the Week (2013–2017)
• The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice (2014)
• Big Fat Quiz of the Year (2016)
• Jamie and Jimmy's Friday Night Feast (2019)
• Hypothetical (2019)
• Jon & Lucy's Christmas Sleepover (2021)
• The Jonathan Ross Show (2022)
• The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan (2023)