RANGANATHAN
Romesh

• 1. Early life
• 2. Career

Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan and often self-deprecating comedy.

Ranganathan has made numerous appearances on television comedy panel shows, and in 2016 he co-presented It's Not Rocket Science on ITV, alongside Rachel Riley and Ben Miller. He has also 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 in which he performed in large venues such as the Hammersmith Apollo. In 2018, Ranganathan joined A League of Their Own as a regular panellist, replacing Jack Whitehall. 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 is entitled Straight Outta Crawley. In December 2021, Ranganathan began hosting the revival of The Weakest Link, replacing Anne Robinson as host.

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.

Early life

Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan was born in Crawley, West Sussex, to Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu parents Ranga and Sivashanthini "Shanthi" Ranganathan. He suffered from an eye infection as a child that left him with right-sided ptosis, which is sometimes referred to as a lazy eye.

Ranganathan studied mathematics at Birkbeck College, University of London. He taught mathematics at Hazelwick School in Crawley, and The Beacon School, Banstead, Surrey, and was a freestyle rapper under the rap name "Ranga", once reaching the finals of the UK freestyle competition. Ranganathan started performing as a comedian whilst working as a teacher, and became a professional comedian in 2012.

Career

anganathan 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 homemade vegan chocolate brownies.

Ranganathan has been a guest on several episodes of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. 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. In 2015, he presented a series for BBC Three, Asian Provocateur, in which he travelled to Sri Lanka to explore his ancestral country. In October 2016, the second travel series was aired in which Ranganathan and his mother travel to North America to meet more of his relatives.

Ranganathan also joined The Apprentice: You're Fired! in 2015 as a regular panellist. The show is a spin-off from The Apprentice. In December 2015, he appeared in Josh Widdicombe's sitcom, Josh. In 2016, he co-presented It's Not Rocket Science, a new entertainment series for ITV, alongside Ben Miller and Rachel Riley. In 2017, he became the eleventh co-presenter to John Lloyd on the BBC Radio series, The Museum of Curiosity.

In 2018, Ranganathan joined Season 13 of A League of Their Own; starred in his own 10-episode docu-comedy called Just Another Immigrant that premiered on Showtime June 8, and presented Judge Romesh, an unscripted television show in which he decides the outcome of court cases between a claimant and a defendant. He also starred in his own series The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan where he travelled to rarely visited locations around the globe, with subsequent series aired in 2019 and 2020.

Ranganathan's autobiography, Straight Outta Crawley, was published in 2018.