I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 4, 2025] Romesh Ranganathan

I have made a list of all of comedians from Taskmaster who I would like to see live.  It’s not everyone of course (some of them don’t do stand up and some I don’t think I would enjoy).  I never really imagined that I would see everyone on the list as many British comedians do not tour the U.S.

I was pretty excited when Romesh Ranganathan announced a show near us.  Romesh is HUGE in England–he’s got TV shows and radio shows and everything else.  But in the US, he filled the 500 seat theater (I wonder how weird it is for massive comedians to play smaller venues like this).

The biggest surprise was when we walked in there was a DJ spinning tunes on stage.  His name is Martin 2 Smooth and he played a whole bunch of classic hip hop, which Romesh loves.

Then Romesh came out and started his act.  I enjoyed that when a person walked in late, he quipped “I just flew in from London and I was on time.” (This was the first night of his US tour).

He was very angry on Taskmaster and I assumed he would be angry in standup.  But he wasn’t.  Well, he was angry, but that wasn’t his whole thing.  He was very funny, making jokes about his family (his oldest son who is now bigger than him and who he believes looks like a terrorist with his hoodie up all the time).

He made some very funny jokes about racial profiling–who would have thought that could be funny.

I also really happened to like his jacket.  I can’t remember much about it, but I remember thinking it was pretty nifty.

As happens with the funniest comedians, it’s really hard to remember the jokes after the show because you were laughing hard and then there was another joke right afterwards.  I do know that I laughed really hard.

He had a lengthy bit about being vegan (which he is). He joked about the amount of turkeys that are killed in Britain alone for Thanksgiving.  And the worst part is that nobody likes turkey–they take all the food they like and stuff it up the turkey’s arse.  But he did admit hat vegan food is terrible.  But he knew that after the show someone would tell him about some delicious vegan cheese.  And then they’d send him some and a few days later a bag of dogshit would arrive.

He also had a really funny bit about going to the beach in Brighton–the worst beach in the world where sitting in the road would be more comfortable than sitting on the rocky shore.  His kids wanted to go swimming.  He doesn’t really swim and about half way to the dock he was convinced he was going to drown.  To die right there in front of his family.  But since he’s a comedian, his family thought he was joking the whole time and they were laughing at him as he was struggling.  And he imagined what impact it would have on a child’s life–I laughed at my father as he was drowning.

A dark joke but very funny.  As was the rest of his show.

This show also happened to be on the night that Mamdani was elected Mayor of New York.  And he was right on it, making a joke about Sharia law happening already.  It was a great night of comedy and fun introduction to the NJPAC theaters.