The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Romesh Ranganathan: There's A Dark Voice In My Head That I've Learnt To Control

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

From a maths teacher and occasional rapper to one of the UK’s most popular comedians, you would think this was the set up to one of Romesh Ranganathan’s typically deadpan jokes. However, as is the case with most comedians behind the jokes and laughter lies pain. After bursting onto our screens Romesh has been constantly working always afraid that his success could slip out from under him at any second, stemming from his family struggles as a teenager when his father was sent to prison and life as he knew it fell apart. In this hilarious but also intimate conversation Romesh discusses the life experiences that have provided him the endless material for his sell out shows but also the challenges that have made him the man he is today. Romesh: Instagram - https://bit.ly/3JSdbR4 Twitter - https://bit.ly/3Xhgq7K Romesh's book: http://bit.ly/3DPPTaY Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you

that listen to this show let's continue i was thinking about taking my own life regularly and I'd fantasized about it. Please welcome Romesh Ranganathan. He's one of the most popular stand-ups around. I'm hosting this bitch. I think that all comedians are wired slightly differently. If something happened to them that has made them an outsider in some way, what is that to you? We lived in a nice house, we had a nice car, all the stereotypical things that you mark success with. Then in a period of six months,

it was complete 180. What was the catalyst for that 180? Well, shut up, mate. I'm addicted to doing stand-up and it makes me better at everything. But I've got this inner voice that is horrific. It will say, you're not a very good dad, you're not a very good husband. I had one of about six panel shows and I was in a really bad place and I turned up to each one of them with the steadfast belief that I was shit at this. What happens when it does go horrifically on this day? It's horrible. There's silence. That never gets easier man but you learn more from those gigs. I just need to do the best i possibly can at this gig i'm not in control of anything that happens after that don't think about this goal down the

line that you're trying to get to do this thing brilliantly if you love what you do and you do that you're on a good path this is such a right time but what an absolute stitch are you joking we're having such a nice time. I'm so fascinated by comedians because I find it to be an art form that is both genius and terrifying. So for someone to want to pursue that career i'm always intrigued by like why so can you give me the context that you think from your earliest

years might have influenced you taking that path if we go before you're even 10 well i did stand up comedy when i was eight you know for the first time where like i mean the truth is i fell into stand-up by accident but when i was a kid i we used to go to this my mom and daddy's texas video store and they'd go you can choose something each and we'll all watch it together or whatever and my mama used to always used to pick like pink she loved like inspector cluso and like peter sellers and pick like pink she loved like inspector cluso and like peter sellers and all that so she'd choose all that stuff and then i discovered eddie murphy i remember like getting out uh beverly hills cop and i watched beverly hills cop and i

was just like this guy is like so incredible and then i started watching everything golden child trading places all of that as a kid i was too young to be watching that stuff and my mom and dad had no idea about age rating so they were fine with it and then i discovered raw which was like his second special that came out i think and i remember watching that and i watched i'd had watched stand-up before on tv like british stand-up i'd watched a lot of it as a kid and loved it there was something about watching a guy and he just had a microphone and he walks out in that leather suit and not that i'd ever worn a leather suit or ever will but like he walks out like it's a rock gig do you mean like the whole crowd like this massive crowd they go nuts and they watch a show of somebody just talking

i just found it unbelievable. Like the low fineness of it, the sort of thing of I'm going to say things I think or my take on stuff and that's the show. There is no more than this. Like, do you know what I mean? There's no effects. It is just literally,

I am going to just stream of consciousness. The illusion is it stream of consciousness. I'm just going to like talk and you're going to, and that's the show i just found it incredible and so then we went my family took me to punting's holiday camp me and my brother for like a week and they had a talent competition and all i used to do then was read joke books like everything i read was like 3001 jokes like joke books for kids like i just that was all i would read all the time just because

of eddie murphy i think so i mean i was just really into comedy i just loved it i love the idea of making people laugh i love the idea of doing comedy i was just so obsessed with it and so then i entered the talent competition as a stand-up it was horrendous but i won i you know i won i beat this kid this kid playing a kazoo and there's another kid doing a dance thing smashed it absolutely smashed it but like even then i really loved stan i like i love stan up but the idea that i would do that for a career as somebody from like an asian background or whatever you know like my parents are very much like you're're going to, you know, we've come over to this country for you to follow a path and be successful. The idea of doing stand-up as a career was not,

it just wasn't ever in there. That stereotype of immigrant Asian parents trying to make you a doctor or a lawyer. Yeah. Was that, did you witness that firsthand from your parents? As in, did they have that conversation with you at any point? Or was it just kind of there in the background as an expectation they they didn't explicitly say you're going to be i mean my dad was pretty laid back to be honest with you my mum was a bit more

was a bit more kind of dead set on what we were going to do but you know there was there was my mum and dad my mum and dad left s left Sri Lanka for my dad to finish his studies. You know, it was an economic reason, but also there was trouble going on in Sri Lanka. You know, like my family originally Tamil. There was lots of trouble going on with the Sinhalese and the Indian government. And it's like a civil war going on. And that was affecting a lot of my family members as well. So there's like a lot of push and pull involved in them coming over here.

But they never sat me down and had a talk but every single time i made a decision or talked about what a levels i was going to do anything like that i was conscious of the fact that they were really worried about what i was going to do that you know for example not going to university was not an option for me do you know i mean really i mean unless i really decided to rebel but they just assumed i was going to educate myself to whatever level and then go off and follow this path of being a successful whatever um so yeah that's kind of it was kind of i felt it do you mean but then they never had an explicit chat but i did feel it when i was reading through your story and going through the notes on your autobiography, it kind of, I really could relate to your childhood in many ways,

because it seemed like your childhood had very distinct opposing chapters, one might say. And I came to the country when I was a kid from Botswana, and the first chapter was great. But that's the chapter I honestly can't remember. Because I was below the age of 10. My siblings can remember it with great detail chapter i honestly can't remember yeah because i was below the age of 10 my siblings can remember it with great um great detail but i can't remember that chapter i'm told about it i'm told about the presence and everything kind of being normal and then the second chapter which i can remember vividly because i was slightly older is when kind of chaos ensued yeah everything seemed to fall apart what was that first chapter for you like

to be honest with you it's very similar to what you're talking about you know i remember i remember being very comfortable and i remember my dad's you know all the stereotypical kind of things that you that you mark success with my dad wore a suit to work do you mean we had a nice car we never really wanted for anything we lived in a nice house the people that my fat like my family were like had a big social circle they were you know all of those like external signifiers that was all happening so like my kind of recollection my to be honest my recollection was being spoiled to be honest like i had just loads of stuff.

Do you know what I mean? Like my mum and dad bought us loads of stuff. We'd go out to eat a lot. You know, my dad was doing well. He was doing really well. Do you know what I mean? And so, yeah, similar to you, I don't have vivid memories of it. But I do have a general memory of like, know if i asked for a thing for christmas

it was pretty sure it's pretty likely i was going to get it i mean for the first eight years or so so it's really super comfortable do you know i mean and then it literally was i would say over the period of six months like everything got completely turned upside down it was like it was just a complete 180. What was the catalyst for that 180? Sort of unbeknownst to me my dad was kind of was not doing great at work he was starting trying to do other it was sort of messing around he was what do I mean by messing around like he was just a bit of a loose cannon do you mean I think think it got to his head a little bit.

He drank a lot. He was a bit of a womanizer. And that was starting to get noticed at his work. And then he started having ideas of like going off and doing other things. He ended up getting, I think he got fired from his job. And then he started trying to do these kind of import export deals, which at the time we thought, oh, that's my dad's new path, but as it turns out was illegal.

But basically we ended up getting out. The first thing I had was that my mum said, we're going to have to move out of this house. This house is being repossessed, right? So my mum and dad couldn't keep up their mortgage repayments. And then we ended up moving to this house on this council estate that my dad had got off a friend or was renting off a friend we were there for a little bit and then while we're at that house my mum found out that my dad had been sort of sleeping regularly sleeping and

started a relationship with this other woman and was intending on leaving us and like leaving us to go and start a life with this other woman and so that threw my mum's kind of world upside down and then basically the the sort of trigger for everything going really kind of mad was we hadn't seen my dad for a couple of days and my mum said i'm gonna it was a mad i can't remember how old it was maybe like 11 or 12 or something my mum said i'm gonna take you to this woman's house and i need you to go to the door and ask where your dad is because i've not seen him for two days and i've not heard from him so she took me around to this house we went to the door and i said where's my dad and she said your dad was arrested two days ago and it turned out that they'd been in the middle of doing some sort of deal or something and their operator they were the target of some sort of

police investigation in leicester the police stormed in or stormed in and arrested them and my dad was being held and ended up going to prison for he was sentenced to two years so so then everything kind of went it sort of went to chaos like my dad was in prison we ended up being housed in a bed and breakfast uh by the council because they didn't have enough housing so my mom my brother and i were staying in uh in a room in this bed and breakfast in haule and um my mum like she'd not been working but she got herself a job as a cleaner and then we were going to school from there do you mean like and yeah it was just like it just sort of like everything completely flipped, man. And so it was kind of, yeah, it was just a complete 180. Do you know what I mean?

At the start of that 180, your dad was an accountant, right? Yeah. And then he'd lost his job. Yeah. Cheated on your mum. Yeah. Gone into sort of financial disarray, ended up in prison. Yeah.

In the process of what, six months or something? Well, the house got repossessed uh we found out about i think that sort of appeared from start to finish maybe 12 to 18 months i think and at that point you were in at the start of that you were in private school right yeah yeah so i'd got a scholarship so um i'd i'd done this i i was i was at school and then what I didn't realise is that my mum and dad were struggling to pay. My dad had lost his job and was trying to make his way in other ways and was struggling to pay for the fees.

And so the first I realised about it was like accountants from the school were turning up to my lessons with like an invoice going. For you? Yeah, to pass on to my parents because my mum and dad were in such arrears and then eventually i got one day i came home from school and dad said to me you can't you're not going back tomorrow like we've got to take you i think it's like midway through

through term he said you can't go back because he was just getting freaked out because he'd like he was in such arrears he was worried about what would happen even if i turned up that you know just not that they were going to do anything to me but i think it got to the point where he just had to take me out he couldn't see a way of paying any of the money anymore so then like two days later i was like enrolled at the local school did you say bye to anybody no no i mean i got there was a mate of mine that i'm still in touch with now um who i kind of let know what was going on or whatever but um nobody else no i just like one day i was there one day i wasn't when i look back on my own life i it's taken me maybe like 30 years to realize like the underlying shame and so when i was looking through your story i was

trying to understand if there was that same feeling of kind of underlying shame. Well, like to give you an idea. So I went to, I started at the state school and I really enjoyed it. And I had a slightly opposite experience to you in terms of like, when I was at the private school, I was one of the only Asian kids there and I got loads of like, I got a fair bit of racism. And then when i moved to state school there were more kids of color at that school i still got i mean i got into my fair

share of scrapes with racists but like that's it's a weird thing i was really enjoying my time at school and it was actually a respite from being at home because like when i went home it was just like everything's gone to shit my mom's really really sad. And obviously I wanted to support her in that. But school felt normal. I didn't tell anybody at school what was going on at home. So I'd go to school and for all they know, everything's totally chill. So my dad went to prison on the 26th of March.

My birthday's on the 27th of March. And I went to my mates my mates organized like a little like get together watch some films and stuff I didn't tell them and I didn't tell them I didn't tell them because just like I don't want anybody to know about this so I turned up to the like to this birthday get together the day after because I didn't want to pollute my school experience with that do you know what I mean mean? So I just didn't tell anybody. And I had really embarrassing experiences where when we moved out of the bed and breakfast, we were put in this flat and there's no phone in the flat.

There was a payphone downstairs. But I didn't want my friends to know that it was a payphone. So I had to make them promise me they were going to call me exactly this time and then stand by the pay phone said that nobody from any one of the other flats was going to answer it do you know what i mean so stupid but i was just so wanting to nobody to know what was going on there's a cost to that there isn't there do you know what i mean like that that kind of living with the sense of embarrassment almost yeah i i guess like there's there's lots of little things that there is a stress at trying to live a double life you know you know things that would normally be okay you suddenly panic over so for example there was a girl i liked and we were like we were living on

this cancer that we've been putting in a house we'd put in this house but we couldn't afford carpet so it's just we just had wooden like just the wooden floors in the you think it was fine but just no carpets it looked it looked strange i mean we're walking around the estate and then this girl that i like said oh do you mind if i come in and use the toilet? I mean, I nearly had a panic attack. I was like, you can't, you, I remember thinking like,

what do I do here? I can't say, no, you can't use the toilet. I started thinking, what can I say? My mom doesn't like girls using the toilet in my house. Like what,

what can I possibly say? In the end, I said, I think I said, we're between carpets. You know how it works. You get the carpets taken out. You just wait for a couple of weeks for the floors to settle.

Then you get the new carpet. That's quick thinking. That's actually really quick thinking. But yeah, all that kind of stuff is just, it's just so stressful. It's so stressful, man. You described yourself as a lazy kid. Yeah, I really was, yeah. You're're not now you're not a lazy person now so i still do think i'm quite lazy i i i just was like all of my school reports said romesh is wasting his ability romesh doesn't

apply himself romesh doesn't um and that was true before everything. Not to the same degree, but it was sort of true before everything kind of went topsy-turvy. But it was definitely true afterwards. You know, a lot of teachers say to me, you're not applying yourself at all. But I sort of think for a while I went through a phase of just having given up, to be honest with you. Because it's sort of gone so, to my mind,

my world had been turned upside down so completely i couldn't really see the point and i just sort of i just wanted to have a nice time like i wanted to enjoy myself and that didn't that meant not working it didn't initially it did not give me you know when you're talking about when you wrote down your list of targets it sort of had the opposite effect i just thought I don't give a shit anymore I've seen my dad work really hard you know I didn't know the full details of what he done you know all of that sort of stuff came out in the wash but like at the time I think I've watched a man work really hard and then he ended up in prison and he split up with my mom I mean they got back together eventually it's like it

was terrible and i actually went through a phase of thinking i know that i went through a phase of thinking that we were just cursed because like so many so many things so many bad things happen in quick succession i actually went through a phase as a kid of thinking that happiness is something that will always elude me or like i will never be comfortable you know this i'm never this is just what we're supposed to be you know like my parents are Hindu. They talk about, you know, talk about God a lot in our house.

And so suddenly you just go, maybe God just doesn't like us, man. You know, I genuinely had that genuine belief that like, maybe this is just how it's supposed to be. So it kind of pushed me the other way. I stopped working. I started bunking off. I just wasn't, I just wasn't in the zone at all.

What was your opinion of yourself during that time it's a great question because to be honest with you what my opinion of myself is now is something i really struggle with and like i've never thought about the origins of that but um with and and like i've never thought about the origins of that but um the the truth is i think when i've come to reflect on it after that and i remember thinking this at the time i remember thinking i don't know what I would have ended up like if we'd have stayed comfortable you know I don't know what person I would have

been if I'd have stayed comfortable and I would I'm telling you now if that hadn't happened to us I wouldn't be a comedian now I wouldn't be the person I am now like there's so many things defined who I am I was defined so much of me has been defined by that period and but what I would say is my opinion my opinion of myself was and continues to be something I really struggle with in terms of it being absolutely like like rock bottom you know you know like you just I just have uh I have a prick living in my head that talks to me all the time. Do you know what I mean? And so, and that is something that to this day, as I'm sitting with you now, I have to contend with.

Do you know what I mean? I've got like this inner voice that is horrific. Do you know what I mean? It's like a horrible, horrible person that I've got like, you you know this horrible voice in my head that just like regardless of whatever external um evidence there is or whatever whatever else happens i will always have this kind of this inner belief uh that i'm sort of a bit shitty do you mean like i'm not i can't do this or i'm not good at this or you're getting away with this or whatever. Imposter syndrome, I guess, is an oversimplified way of describing it.

But yeah, it's something I've sort of had to, not had to deal with, something I've dealt with for as long as I can remember, really. I got really, I got chills all over my body then. And I don't really know, do you know why it is? It's because it really breaks my heart to hear that. Right. And it genuinely does like, and it also i think people don't understand the privilege

that they have if they don't have that in their head right yeah yeah i totally agree i mean it's it's such a difficult thing because because if you don't have that you don't understand why somebody would have that you go what are you talking about yeah snap out of it do you mean like look at your life and go a successful comedian yeah yeah yeah 100 you sort of go and it's not that i'm unhappy with my lot it's not that i want anything it's nothing external i don't need anything external to change i just have that you just have that you know i've just always mentally had that and yeah like what you just said i totally relate to because know i've just always mentally had that and yeah like what

you just said i totally relate to because sometimes i've not you don't tell people because you just sort of go they're going to go what what you want about like what what are you talking about but people that get it get it i mean and it's like i do think you know something that i've kind of got involved with as much as i possibly can is to sort of encourage those you know those kind of mental health conversations and stuff i think we've become much more open about it than we were in the past but when i was at uni i i went to see a therapist that like they had like these free therapy sessions for students and i went along to one and i did like a whole course whatever i remember telling my mom about it and she like

freaked out you know because so what do you mean you're going to a therapist like what is there something wrong with your head you know like she like really like because to her mind does that mean you're mad like do you know what i mean like she didn't have that same it's like her understanding of it now it's completely you know she's completely you know she's her understanding of it. Now it's completely, you know, she's completely, you know, her attitude towards it is very different. But, yeah, it's just something you have to contend with. And, like, at the moment, as I'm talking to you now, I've got coping mechanisms and I'm sort of on top of it.

But I'm always sort of this, you know, if I get, if I, it can be something really little, like I don't exercise for a bit or I don't hydrate properly for a few days or I don't get enough sleep, I'm back. Do you know if i get if i it can be something really little like i don't exercise for a bit or i don't hydrate properly for a few days or i don't i don't get enough sleep i'm back do you know what i mean like i go dark let's just go dark in my head you know like you kind of the voice comes you know the voice comes back but you know what i mean you start getting down on yourself and you have to be on top of all of those things like what does the voice say it will say you're not a very good dad you're not a very good

husband if i come to do this podcast it will go why are you bothering to do this you've got nothing interesting to say do you mean like you're going to try and get away with this at some point somebody's going to tap you on the shoulder and go we all know if you leave quietly we won't say it if you know that kind of thing you know i remember like doing a run of like i was particularly busy i had a run of about six panel shows like different studio things over two weeks and i was in a really bad place and i turned up to each one of them with the steadfast belief that i was shit at this right and i've got to try and get away with it as much as i possibly you know like i was just in a bad place i turned up and i'll be sitting there and like you know to be a comedian you've got to

be loose and like chilled out and relaxed and it's almost like being a you know i've read a lot about it about being in a flow state you know being in the pocket whatever you want to call it you can't be in the pocket if you've got a voice in your head going you're crap at this so it's like yeah it just you just go through periods of it i I suppose. When you went to see that therapist in school, why did you go? So there was this very specific trigger. So what happened was is I had saved up, because I've always been really into music,

and I'd saved up to get this like hi-fi. Yeah. Like this really cool bit of stereo equipment. And I was too scared to take it to uni because I just thought somebody's going to nick this or it's going to get smashed up. So I left it at home in my bedroom at home and my mum and dad had a lodger and he was sort of he was somebody that had come over from Sri Lanka that they were kind of helping out and he'd been sleeping I'd been sharing a room when I came back

I shared a room with him and they'd moved that piece of stereo equipment right because he needed to put some stuff somewhere or whatever my reaction to something quite nothing was like it was like i really like was like felt like my mum and dad were trying to move me out or they didn't care about my stuff like and then I'd like really got pissed off about it and then later on that evening realized that that was a massive overreaction and then recognized that I wasn't in a good headspace you know like I just felt like for me to have reacted like that probably was a sign that was because I felt like I was going through some shit as well you know like you know you don't feel right in yourself and then when I reacted like that I thought I need to I need to sort of speak to

somebody probably you know i'm not in a good i'm not in a good place and so like i think like two days later i looked into it and then started going you know what's um really has i think changed my life is the amount of times i've had this exact conversation with someone who is maybe a comedian maybe not about the voice in their head yeah and until i started doing this podcast i had absolutely no idea i couldn't comprehend the thought that there's people that have a voice in the head that is somewhat against them at times all right i couldn't comprehend it yeah and so for me like this isn't the first time i've heard this is maybe maybe not even the 10th time it's really eye-opening for me have you ever and this is i mean this is almost an impossible

task because you're like trying to piece things together in hindsight but have you ever developed a perspective or an opinion where that voice comes from or why you have it and someone else might not no i don't i don't know is it you know like why have i got it and other people haven't I don't know it's something I've thought about particularly I'm talking to people that don't have it or don't understand why I've got it um and I don't know I I don't know if it's like I mean I'm being super super pseudo psychologist here but I sort of think that you know when I

said to you about I sort of felt like everything was against us yeah but i sort of think that you know when i said to you about i sort of felt like everything was against us yeah and you sort of go through this period of like during your formative years of a lot of things going badly or going negatively you then start to see that as your default and then if something goes right or something's going well then that is against type or that is against you know you're supposed to have shit happen to you're like you're bad stuff supposed to or you're supposed to have bad experiences and so then maybe that son i'm going i'm just freestyling here but maybe that kind of gets hardwired into you so that even if like you have positive things you kind of you you kind of don't accept them. And I also think of like,

sometimes I've reflected on times when I was a kid, like really young and done things that I would consider to be selfish. Or I remember like this, like have a vivid memory of being horrible to my brother. And the voice goes to me, that's you at your core. Like when you're being nice, that is conditioning. But that is what, you know, I've had that thought

where that you fundamentally is that is what you know i've had that thought where that you fundamentally is that person that that nasty person but what you've done is like social conditioning has taught you that you know you allow your brain to go down those those thought pathways you know i sat with gabble matter he's um he's maybe he's like considered to be like the leading um psychologist therapist on specifically childhood trauma and his he was handed off during the holocaust when his because his mom was trying to save him so she gave him to someone else and he talks to me about how we interpret we are narcissists as young children we think everything is about us so parents are screaming that's because of me yeah you know and and how children

are these like great like huge narcissists so even though his mom was doing an act of love he almost internalized it as an act of abandonment which meant that he wasn't good enough so he he talks about how he lived with this kind of sense of not being good enough the other conversation i reflect on which comes to mind as you're talking is steve peters who wrote the chimp paradox and he talks about you've read it it's a great book talks about two periods he goes under the age of like 10, you can develop goblins. And he refers to a goblin as something that we can never really shake

because of the neural pathways in our brain are pretty much changed for good. And we can often not remember it because we don't even start to form memories until we're like three or whatever. And those are your goblins. And then he goes, after 10, it's really your gremlins, which are things we can overcome. So it's interesting that we can and those are your goblins and then he goes after 10 it's really your gremlins which are things we can overcome yeah so it's it's interesting that we can have

these sort of goblins but also not remember where they came from and they can also be just like narcissistic childlike interpretation of events yeah yeah i think i think i i do sort of agree with that and i think like one of the things I discovered is like in conflict and things like that, you know, there was this David Foster Wallace did this like commencement speech that I read. And it's about like this thing that we're all hardwired to believe that we are the center of the universe. Right. So like when you're going to work and somebody cuts you up or somebody takes ages in front of you at the supermarket. So what is this happening to me? And then as soon as you flip the switch and go this isn't happening to me i'm like this person's got their own thing and this person's got their own thing as soon as you do that your ability to just chill out is miraculous right and and i i do think that that is part of it like you know the belief that

bad things happen to me what am i talking about do you mean what are you talking about do you think you're that important that that that they've got time for destiny to go now bad what are you talking about you absolute god complex having twat you know that's the truth of it you see i mean it's just some stuff happened man it's not destiny you're not on some route there's nobody's got anything against you just like what are you talking about who do you think you are do you know what i mean so it is that it is that you're kind of like trying to combat that you said you learned coping mechanisms yeah what are those coping mechanisms um that sounds like one of them what you just described there which sounded like perspective yeah one of them is perspective another one is just is completely it's completely surrendering yourself to the moment that you're in so like uh if you complete what i found is is like a lot of kind

of your so this inner voice or whatever or a lot of your worries and stuff like that are things that are not happening to you at that time you know it's like i'm worried this is going to happen i'm worried i'm shit at this and this is going to happen. And one of the things I found is like to just completely be of this moment and this moment alone and sort of, yeah, just be present, you know? Like, so if I come here, I could come here going, if this podcast doesn't go well

then people are going to get in touch with my social media and then you know uh but you know you can start getting yourself in a thing you're not good enough to do this podcast he shouldn't have interviewed have you seen the other guests he's got on this podcast why has he done this or if you just go i'm just going to come here and enjoy this podcast and you know and i'm just going to be here in the in the chat with you you're just you're the way you experience things completely changes do you mean you you just you just become you just have a different experience of the same thing you can experience two things completely differently like and the truth is all of these things you're catastrophizing are fine you know like if i go if i'm if i'm crap on a panel show i don't get booked for that panel show again so what like who gives a shit do you mean like that's fine it's totally cool

and then the other thing is to just kind of actively be aware of when i'm getting like that you know like sometimes you can't necessarily stop it but i go i've gone dark do you mean you sort of go this is happening but this is it's okay to feel like this i don't need to block those thoughts but they are irrational and i just i just know what's happening do you mean i need to get my nutrition in order i need to get down the gym i need to get a good night's sleep whatever i need to do to sort myself out i need to do a bit of like you know headspace or whatever it is do you know what i mean to try and get myself back on an even keel whereas before before i had that kind of coping mechanisms who knew when i was going to

come out of it you know i just would submit myself to it completely and then it would be like chance that i would come out of it you know when you reflect on your journey with mental health was there has there what period of your life was the most difficult in terms of mental health yeah um i would say my late my late teens into my kind of early 20s was really challenging because i remember reacting i've got loads of memories of reacting really badly to to things um like irrationally like over the top reactions like I remember like I didn't really do very well in my a-levels because I was just like pissing about and then when the a-level results came I just thought this is the end I can't carry on with

my life you know I really like was like I can't you know i was i was thinking about taking my own life like regularly you know like yeah there's loads of times that you know there's loads of times during that period when i thought about it i did think about it a lot um and i'd fantasize about it you know i'd like to think about how i was going to do it i think about how easy it would be after that i think about the repercussions after I'm gone you know I'd think like I'd spend time thinking about it you know so um and that was kind of the toughest time and then as I kind of got older um yeah it sort of got I still had the same issues but I started to kind of be able to to deal with them a bit more effectively and you know like I managed to shut off the voice you know

there'd be there'd be long times I don't have any voice at all you know like it's just gone and then occasionally sort of go dark again but yeah that was probably the most challenging time you know there's a there's a stereotype about comedians and them you know their perspective of themselves and not not being happy or whatever there's that like a long enduring stereotype and i've sat here with jimmy carr etc and he's told me he actually said to me he said you should ask you should ask comedians not are they depressed but like who in their family was depressed which i thought was an interesting one what's your whole observation as relates to you on that like stereotype that comedians are either depressed themselves or their family was or their mom was or they had someone in the home they were trying to cheer up i don't i don't i don't know if i

think that all comedians are depressed i've said after a long description it feels like i've supplied a lot of evidence to the contrary. But I don't think all comedians are depressed. But I do think that I think that all comedians are wired slightly differently. Certainly all the really good ones. Do you know what I mean? All the ones that like something's happened. They've had something happen to them that has changed the wiring, that has made them an outsider in some way.

And it might be depression, but it might be might be you know it might be a change in circumstances it might be a bereavement it might be whatever it might be a class shift it might be their parents you know there's something about comedians that just they're just slightly different you know their wiring is slightly different i do genuinely believe that because i sort of whenever i talk to comedians who i really like after a while of talking to them you go i've spotted it there you go there it is they've all got that they've all got a little bit of like you know yeah they've all got a little bit of faulty wiring, I think. I don't mean faulty. I mean wired differently. Different, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What is that, in your words, for you? What is that different wiring that's made you, like, pulled, magnetised by the career of being a stand-up comic, a comedian, a writer? I don't know. I think that, like, sort of, I think the speed in which, the speed in which everything changed uh you know the the sort of my life experiences as well as the fact that i was sort of drawn to comedy anyway

you know all of my family a lot my dad was my family sort of all pretty comedically you know that they're all my my my the love language at my house is taking the piss out of each other do you know like you know my mum and dad and my brother and i just rinse each other all the time that was that was what i knew that's what my kids are like that's what we're like in my house you know and i think that that's kind of contributes to it but i think that you know again i'm being sort of i'm speaking from a position of deep ignorance but like i think having seen the normal trajectory for my dad and the direction that they wanted for me go so spectacularly wrong has allowed me to accept taking a different path do you mean like i i think

had that not happened i probably would have gone i need to get like a regular job like and follow this trajectory that my parents want and i need to follow the the the the milestones of success that everybody kind of attributes whereas this thing allowed me to go well do you know what i'm just going to do the thing i really want to do and let's see what happens do you know what i mean and initially that was you know before i was in comedy that was teaching i didn't do teaching because i wanted to make you don't do teaching because you want to make money but i wasn't doing teaching because i wanted like respect from the community i did it because i loved the idea of teaching children and then i ended up moving into comedy and i just sort of thought i actually kind of i kind of uh have attached less attach less weight to financial remuneration to like having the nice house to all of that

and i just want to do this i just want to be driven by wanting to do this thing do you know i mean because if you chase the financial thing it can still go horrifically wrong so why am i doing that do you mean i might as well chase it that could still go wrong but at least i'm doing something i enjoy do you know and that first you know I was reading about your early sort of gigs in like pubs and stuff like that like eight people or whatever that for that first time a gig went well maybe it was a was it Butlins your first that was my first when I was at eight yeah yeah how did you feel up on stage and the minute you walked off stage when it went really well well i can tell

you a really specific gig man that like it was quite a bit into so i was you know you were doing all these pub gigs and i started to get to a point where i was starting to do well at these gigs right and i felt like okay i'm starting to get all right at this you know for that level do you know i mean you certainly couldn't put me on at the apollo at that stage but like i was like i was starting to feel like i was starting to do well in these gigs and what i hadn't done what i'd never done is i'd never turned a room so what i mean is whenever however the gig was going i would go on and follow suit right so if it was a good gig i'd probably have a good gig if it was a tough gig i'd still do all right but i'd have a tough gig the first time i absolutely buzzed my tits off is it was a tough gig i was on second and like the host had struggled the first act had struggled and then they got me on and i started

and they were quiet but by the end of the gig it was like i was like having a great one and that to turn like that was the first time I'd ever taken a room from being quiet to being a great gig and I lost my mind I mean like I was just like the adrenaline was just insane man I came off just like and you have to hide that right because you know you don't want to walk off just go yeah man yes absolute smash time so I had to like swallow that down and just go, I've got to leave quickly so I can scream in the car. But I felt, I felt, mate, that I remember like as the gig was turning,

I didn't want to dip out. Because as soon as you go, this is going well, you're out of the moment, right? So I had to like, I had to just like, just keep doing the gig, keep doing the gig. Like had a great response. And I was like, oh my God, that felt amazing. It was unbelievable, man.

Amazing. And has that kind of been your relationship with stage where that's the real, like, that's the, that's the pinnacle in terms of like feelings and emotions and like, I guess like self, I don't know, affirmant. I don't know affirmant um I don't know I mean I definitely enjoy the buzz of doing live stand-up more than anything else I do and like nothing else really matches up to I really do enjoy all the other stuff I do but nothing can really compete with stand-up I think

it's partly because of the possibility that you could really die on your ass like that is exciting that it could go horrifically wrong but this is something i was going to ask is as someone who said that there's that voice in your head and things can trigger it what happens when it does go horrifically wrong on stage it just depends because like the truth is your mindset changes right because like when i started doing stand-up, if I did badly, it's probably because I was shit, right? Whereas now, I feel like I'm all right at stand-up. And now, the gigs that go badly, you need those gigs. It's like going to the gym.

If I'm trying to write a new tour, I've got to write new material. So I go on with 10 minutes of new material and i try it out if i if it goes for nothing i'm disappointed because none of the stuff's work but it doesn't it doesn't make me think i'm a shit comedian i'm disappointed these people are going to leave thinking romesh was crap tonight i can't do anything about that but you're sort of going this is part of the process you know you're like i'm going to the gym i've got to like you learn more from those gigs do you know what i mean and so it's still don't get me wrong it's still horrible it's horrible saying something and then looking out at their silence that never gets that never gets easier man but you sort of go this is what you've got to do it's like when you're you've got to take risks in the

small rooms so that when you do the big rooms it it's better. You know, like, you know, you want to do stuff that's on the, not necessarily on the edge, but you want to do stuff where you might do an act out that you wouldn't normally do or you might talk about something you never talked about before. And the risk is you might tuck into a big plate of shit.

But when you're in the big room, when you're doing your tour, you go, I wish I'd taken more risks back then. Do you know what I mean? So you can't, it's kind doing your tour, you go, I wish I'd taken more risks back then. Do you know what I mean? So it's kind of a different process. Having said that, I've done a corporate gig where I've died on my ass and I felt absolutely horrific. You know, like, oh God.

It's just so awful, man. There's something really surprising about someone who attests to having that like tricky internal monologue with themselves that would then put themselves in such a high risk situation i know you'd expect you'd think someone would just stay at home and just avoid any chance of reinforcing that negative voice of waking that prick up yeah yeah it's amazing though the honest truth is i would have that voice regardless of what i did so i might as well do something i really love do you know what i mean and

i just absolutely like i'm addicted to doing stand-up i'm addicted to it even if i don't have a tour to prepare for i'll go and do a gig you know i can't not gig and it makes me better at everything so if i'm doing a travel show i'm funnier on the travel show if i'm regularly gigging if i'm not gigging i'll be worse on that panel on that travel show i'll be worse on a panel show i'll be worse talking to you now like you know you're just you're just exercising that muscle like being on stage I just feel I'm addicted to it so you went and became a teacher yeah for a while um and at some point you make the decision to reach out and swing onto that next branch I'm trying to understand that that sort of pivotal moment

and like what happened what made you take the leap crazy i mean i know comedians when they start out don't get paid a huge amount of money you run at a loss for a long time and you were you had a kid on the way in the process of you taking that leap yeah logically it was foolish there's no getting around that but um well what happened was i started teaching i was really loving it and then i um i just wanted to do stand-up as a hobby like loads of teachers have got hobbies right you know so how many teachers are in bands right so i just thought this is going to be my thing i'm going to do stand-up so i just started doing gigs and then it started to go really well. And then somebody said to me, you know, you could definitely do this for a job.

What did you think when they said that? I just didn't, it hadn't occurred to me. Well, that's a lie. It had occurred to me, but I didn't think, you don't, there's so many people trying to do stand-up, man. Like so many people. Like what are the chances that you're going to be able to make a living out of it it's like so slim and also i just hadn't seen it as a

career thing but yeah somebody comes and goes it was like it was actually a competition i was doing a competition called say you think you're funny in edinburgh and i was in i got to the semi-final and it's like one person gets through to the final and i made it through to the final and then one of the judges came up and said oh the reason that um we put you through is because as soon as you walked in we go this guy's going to be a comedian like you just look like you're going to be a comedian you can definitely do this for a living so there's just something about about you would just go this guy's going to be a comic and so that's when i was like oh okay and then my gigging then had a bit more purpose and because before i was just like i'm just going to try and get good at this you know that but then now i was thinking oh maybe i could do this for a job and then um

my agent and so then i got an agent and the agent said to me if you really want to give this a go you're going to have to leave teaching and so i talked to my wife about it and we were like okay so i decided to leave at christmas so you give it like a half terms notice or whatever and um didn't you get caught so bad man but like basically i was head of sixth form well actually i was junior head of sixth form and um i don't know why i had to make that that clarification literally nobody cares sorry was romney i'm pretty sure rosh's junior head of sixth in that period of his life anyway why did i make that correction anyway um so i so basically i got asked to do this like this show at the edinburgh fringe like every night it was just like compilation mixed bill show

whatever and it's like a big opportunity and um but i was supposed to be back for a level a level result so i just got in touch with him and i said um my my wife's poorly and so i can't i feel embarrassed saying it i can't make it back and they went okay and so I said I'll be back as soon as I can and then I just was like okay that's fine I've got away with that and then I came back to school the first day of September and nobody in the office was talking to me like it was like a proper frosty atmosphere and I thought oh god what's happened here and then I opened my computer and it said could you come to hr so i went to hr and they uh they said to me the lady said to me she's lovely um she said to me so you couldn't come back because uh your wife was poorly and i said i said yeah as soon as

she said that i thought this is over right and then she goes right and then she just opened this drawer and just pulled out this folder and it had like reviews me appearing on lineups like it was a comprehensive dossier of what I'd been up to at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and it was just so tricky because I just thought that would be great to have

but as soon as she said that she was like what do you want to do she goes you can't work with that team anymore because they don't want to work with you anymore because they're like they feel so like they're so pissed off with you for what you've done she said we can move you to another head of year team and i sort of knew that i was going to leave to do comedy at that stage so i thought it's not fair to go and join another head of year team only to leave. So I just said, I'll become a maths teacher. Like, you know, I'll take a step down and be a maths teacher

and not have any of that responsibility. And so I just did that for the remainder. But when I left, the thing that kind of turned things upside down again was like three days before I was due to leave teaching, my dad passed away suddenly of a heart attack and so um yeah it was and so then basically what happened was is that the period after my dad passing away we had to sort out my mom's final it turned out my dad's finances were a house of cards he got this pub that he'd been sort of borrowing money from the house to finance and all this it was like a nightmare so it just meant that it was like the start of my comedy

career was pretty tough like we would just start throwing our time into trying to figure that out how did you deal with that how did you process the the loss of your father it was really difficult because I was really close to my dad. I mean, my relationship, as you can imagine, was very troubled with my dad because, you know, I'd seen this guy. I'd seen this guy kind of want to leave us. And, you know, he'd been sleeping around a lot with a lot of different women. And I'd seen mum, you you know when we're in the bed

and breakfast i'd seen my mom cry herself to sleep every night and like it was really hard you know that's all because of my dad so that was really difficult and i remember like i'd had loads of arguments with him he tried to be a parent again i resisted because i felt like he didn't want to be a parent how can you come back in and start so you know there's very difficult but then as we got you, later on in his life, we got really close again. And, you know, I'm absolutely just delighted that when my dad passed away,

I had a really good relationship with him. But it was hard, you know, like my dad was a person that I was most like in my family. My mum and my brother are very similar and I'm very similar to how my dad was. So I found it really, really difficult difficult I found it really really hard and um the thing that I feel really sad about for him is that sort of when he passed away he hadn't really got himself into a comfortable position you know like everything had gone wrong and he

was trying to work his way back up but you know my recollection of my dad right up to the day he died was like absolutely working his arse off and kind of chasing his tail you know my recollection of my dad right up to the day he died was like absolutely working his ass off and kind of chasing his tail you know so that was that is a bit of sadness in that you know i kind of think i wish he'd had it a bit easier in his life you know sometimes i think you know i'll be honest with you if my dad was still around i would be broke because he would have burned for all of my money that i'd made from comedy like my dad was like such so irresponsible with money so um but yeah there's a bit of sadness if you could have gone back to ramesh when your father was alive in his last say five years would

you act a different in any way i'm always so curious about this because i'm in a position where i'm fortunate enough that my parents are still around and i i spend time often forecasting the things i'm going to regret is So is there anything where you think, I wish I'd said this or I should have, you know? Yeah, I mean... So, well, no is the honest answer. I think that you can be in a position where you don't feel that. I mean, look, you're always going to feel like

I should have said I love you more or whatever. But I remember when I was 18, be in a position where you don't feel that. I mean, look, you're always going to feel like I should have said I love you more or whatever. But I remember when I was 18, I'd come back from uni and I'd been out like with some mates getting drunk and I hadn't told my mum when I was going to come back and I came back later than I said I was going to. And I walked in pretty inconsiderate and drunk and my mum and dad are sat in front of the TV.

And my dad said to me, how can you come back at this time and i said to him how can you even talk to me about what i should be doing in this house and then i just launched into a monologue about how he had no right to tell me anything that i did in my life how he wanted to walk away how can you come back in here and tell me that i should be doing whatever after what you've done to mom after what you've done to me and my brother like what are you doing like what you know and i just went into this rant and he sat there mate as i'm telling you now he took it from me and like you know you think about

you know asian culture you don't talk you know my dad was very laid back but you don't talk to your parents like that do you mean but he sat there like he took it he took every word from me and i stormed out the house and my mum watched me have this conversation and ordinarily like my mum would have uh picked me up on it but she didn't and i never spoke to my dad about that conversation again. So like, I went out for a bit. I came back in the next day, we never spoke about it. My dad never asked for an apology. I never apologized to my dad.

We never spoke about it again. And if my relationship with my father hadn't have improved after this point, it would have, I don't know how I would feel about that conversation. It would be something that, and even now as i'm saying it to you i made up with my dad but it kills me that i said that to him i don't disagree with anything i said but it does kill me that i said that to him but when it was his 60th birthday my dad's got loads of brothers and

a sister a load of them came over from Canada and Australia to see him. And I wrote in his card, thank you for being a great dad and somebody I look up to. And my dad opened the card and he said to me, he read the card and he went really quiet. It was in the middle of quite a raucous family get-together and he opened the card and it went really quiet. And like in the middle of quite a raucous family get together and he opened the code really quiet and he just said to me do you honestly mean that like he just didn't believe that that was my view of him and like he couldn't like and then i

realized up to that point my dad had just thought we'd not he just thought we weren't cool because of what had happened in the past and he goes you he said to me do you honestly mean that i said yeah of course i do and then i felt you know i felt like i feel like now my dad knew what i thought about him do you know what i mean and the what i think of my dad is that he was a deeply deeply deeply flawed human being that had a great a lot of great things about him and and you know um so yeah when he when he passed away i felt really i i felt really close to him but you know there's loads of things like there's things where like if i'm being honest with you when we started to go where things started to go wrong i was quite materialistic you know can i have this can i have that why can't i have that

anymore what what are you doing you prick oh yeah do you know what i mean like why are you valuing that stuff i remember like i've got a really vivid memory of wanting the new public enemy album right it was like 8.99 on cassette or something and my dad said yeah i'll get it for you and then on the day he just didn't have a tenner we just he didn't have a tenner but he don't have any money and i like flipped out do you mean i flipped out you promised me you get but that time you look at the context of it you'd be forgiving if you try if you've been forgiving to that romesh everything's going tits up this album is like some sort of security wants to listen to that some sort of normality do you mean and it's a promise as well exactly exactly and then he

couldn't in the circumstances what i should have done was gone okay cool i'd love to get it that's what a good kid does i'd love could you get it for me when we can or i'll find another way to get it but as a kid you sometimes interpret that as like you don't love me maybe a hundred percent you know what i mean yeah a hundred percent and it's something that i'm really conscious of with my kids now because you sort of go i don't want them to get the message that i don't love them so but then you run the risk of like buying them everything do you know what i mean it's like it's such a difficult thing i love you have it i love you have it playstation yes i love you like hoodie yes i love you trainers yes i love you and then

you go hold on a minute this ain good. These kids need to hear no. So yeah, it's a tricky one, man. What about your mum? She seems to have been this real warrior throughout all of this turmoil. And I was reading some quotes. I know she did an interview where she just said that the centre of her universe

was you two as brothers. And she would have done anything to you, including becoming a cleaner and taking other jobs in shops and stuff like that. She seems to be a kind of a real hero throughout your story yeah i mean she's like she's amazing you know you you think about um you know she she came over from sri lanka my she was you know 1920 when she came over she grew up in a tiny village she gets thrown into this new country she tries to make her way make new friends

her husband is immersed in the world in the country much more than she is because she's a stay-at-home you know wife and mother and she's like you know making her way and then her life gets thrown upside down and she goes for a position where she has to single-handedly raise her two sons because her husband's kind of dipped out and and on top of that she's got to deal with a heartbreak of what her husband has done as well as go what i've got to like i've got to brush my shoulders off and like and start and support these kids it's like amazing it's amazing you know it's amazing and so like you know she she's like a hero of mine for for how she's been for all of that time and how she continues to be now.

I mean, don't get me wrong. She loves spending money and she loves being recognised and she loves being a celebrity. She loves being on TV, all of that. But I'm delighted. I'm delighted that my mum's period of life now, after what she went through, is being on TV, being comfortable, having her house paid off, drives nice like great wicked like do you

mean like this is amazing do you know what i mean like this is amazing i mean don't get me wrong i do sometimes have a go and go you don't need that mum do you mean like you like chill out and like you know she does things that annoy me like for example she crashed her car she wasn't happy with the courtesy car that we're offering so she then said to me uh rami you need to give a guy that works at the insurance company two tickets to your door because he upgraded my car so she does stuff like that and like so but but mate she's like what i mean she's incredible you know i can't you know you can't i can't say no to her. I mean, like, she doesn't, well, there's, you know,

it's debatable whether she takes a piss or not, but, like, my mum's amazing. She's amazing. And, like, yeah, I owe a lot to her, you know. So she is a hero of mine, definitely. Does she know that? Have you ever said to her what you think and feel about that period and how she behaved?

I have said that to her. What I would say is that sits in direct contradiction to how many times I phone her. Do you know what I mean? I tell her I love her, but I don't get in touch enough for as much as she'd like. I don't see her as much as she'd like. So yeah, i probably should sort

that out i mean that i should probably sort that out but um but she knows she knows what i think of her yeah definitely i've got no doubts in my mind that she knows what i think of her when did you make it and what was the the catalyst moment you know making it is kind of like a there's so much assumption in it that there was a moment where everything changes that's why it's a bit of a shitty question if i reflect on that but like when was what was the the first stone that fell or the first domino that fell that created the cascading events i hear about this figure in your life called sean walsh yeah and the impact he had in believing in you and being very patient with you yeah i love that because we can all think of that that i can think in my life of that person that make like bizarrely had faith in me yeah a little bit more

than i did in myself yeah yeah well it's an interesting one with sean because basically what happened was he saw me at a gig in brighton and like he liked like the set or whatever and then he was going on tour and i was like so at that stage if you're a tour support who basically he asked me to support him on tour if you're a tour support you drive you drive the act you drive the main act so i'd go and pick him up and at that stage i was so broke that um you know sometimes i feel i don't know you get paid after the gig like you know after you've done a run a gig sometimes i was like i don't know if i don't know if i've got enough money for petrol to like go and get him like it was like proper like i was like really running on fumes financially and um so i was picking up taking to gigs

and like that money from those gigs was basically keeping our bills paid you know if i didn't have those gigs i don't know what we would have done and then during that time um i one of the things that he offered to do that i never took him up on was i couldn't pay the road tax on my car and i had some money due to coming from a gig and i said to lisa when this money comes in i'll pay the road tax your wife my wife sorry yeah i said i said to her when when when this money comes in i'll pay for the road tax anyway we came home from the shops and the car was gone and they'd impounded it for not having road tax and i phoned up and i said um how do i get my car back and they said well it's a 450 pound fine and it's 150 pounds for every day

that we have the car for so i said enjoy the car and then put the phone down and i said to lisa i'm really sorry we don't have a car anymore i don't know what to tell you i can't afford like there's no way every day I spend trying to get that 450 quid. We've got to pay another 150. This is like mad. And then I told Sean about it and he straight away goes, I'll give you the money to get a car. He goes, I'll just lend it to you.

He goes, I know you're good for it. He goes, I know you'll start making money from comedy and you'll be able to pay me back. And I never took him up on it. But saying that was huge. Like it was so huge um anyway when we were on tour he started doing the show called stand up for the week and that was like they did topical material and you had writers working on it and he said to me can you write me some like write some stuff for the show

like and actually what he started doing is he started going what do you think about this story and i'll tell him like he goes you know what comedy angles have you got on this story and i talked to him and he'd like go okay okay and little did i know he was trying to help me out right so he was trying to test the waters so what's your angles on this then he goes can you send me some stuff like send me some stuff you've written and i remember sending some stuff and he goes he's all shit i can't this is unusable and he goes try again next week i'll send you the stories have a go and then i did it again and he goes some of this is good most of it is shit and then i did that for another couple times he goes right do you want to come into the writer's room he goes i get into the writer's room and you can sit in and like do some stuff so i sat in and

then i became a writer on stand up for the week i started becoming a writer on stand up for the week and then he did a show called sean morsh world and he got me in as a writer on that and then they did a press launch for the show and they were doing a comedy gig as part of the press launch and sean got me on that comedy gig and i did the gig and the guys that produced live at the apollo were there for that gig because it was like the same sort of production house that do the show they i had a great set and two days later they phoned me and asked me to be on live at the apollo and like at that time the money that you get for doing live at the apollo basically would pay my bills for six months right and so i didn't have an agent at the time so they had to phone me directly we were dropping

the kids off at nursery and i got the phone call it's like romesh this is the guys from live at the apollo just wondering if you wanted to be on the next series and i just went hold on a sec i was doing live at the apollo man and i I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I can do that. And straight away I go, I can do comedy for another few months. You know what I mean? I can pay bills for the next few months. I don't know. It might come to the end of that few months and I've still not got anywhere. But I've just bought.

I've got six months in this game still. It was like, it was incredible. And that is, like, you know, Sean was incredible and that is down like you know sean got me that man do you know i mean like he he was like giving me work that was you know i'll never forget that then you did live at the apollo yes how did that feel it was unbelievable man it's like it was such an iconic show. I heard your dad always used to say to you when you were younger about you doing live at the Apollo. Oh, mate.

So when I started gigging, I was trying to get stage time. And it's quite difficult to get gigs. There was a good open mic circuit. It was quite difficult to get gigs. My dad was running a pub at the time. And he said to me, just run a gig here. And you can host the gig and you can book people, book your mates or whatever. He goes, we'll do it. And I go, okay. So I started running a pub at the time and he said to me let's just run a gig here and like you can host

the gig and like you can book people book your mates or whatever he goes we'll do it like and i go okay so i started running a gig there and we're like when i did my first gig there it'll go to me i don't understand why you're not alive with the apollo i said dad i've got like four minutes of gear like and it's not great it's not as i said if you thought if it's that easy to get alive with the apollo everyone would be doing it do you mean but he used he was kind of veered between being quite harsh and being like he he always thought i was going to make it like he was he had no doubts he was like you are going to make it as a comedian but then he would come and see me at gigs and he'd go the first guy was a lot better than you tonight like he go you need to think about that because like you like he goes

you did fine don't get me wrong but that first guy was great like that's who everyone's going to remember after this gig and he goes to think about so he was like he would give me like honest and heartfelt criticism but within the remit of within the context of the fact that you are going to make it but i'm just telling you tonight you weren't good enough do you know what i mean so was it bittersweet when you did love it apollo for that reason that he he wasn't there at that time a little bit i mean the whole thing man is like my dad never saw me really i mean i started doing the circuit i mean like he didn't my dad died before i became a full-time comedian you know so he's not seen any of it he saw like me doing these shitty gigs and he used to come to all those gigs and he started to see me do some circuit gigs which were like you know they were like you felt like you'd

made it you know you're playing a 400 seater room on a saturday night whatever feels great you like you feel like i'm in show business or whatever but he never really saw any of that he never saw me do any tv i know he did see me do one terrible bit of tv i did soccer am um that was like my one thing that he saw me do and it went terribly so he's only ever seen he's only ever seen me have a terrible time on tv so yeah it is a bit bittersweet to be honest you'll run from that point of live at the apollo to where you are now incredible as a comedian i mean there's very few people that get to sit at that top table as you said as you identified when you're a teacher. But to be one of those sort of standout comedians that everybody knows is really, really incredible.

Now, when I reflect on, do you take that, do you take that, your body language is quite telling. You were uncomfortable and awkward. Yeah, yeah. I just feel like, I feel really lucky. I just feel like so much of that is outside of your control. Do you know what I mean? Like that's why I feel like I feel a bit like I don't want to, there's part of me that doesn't want to accept that. Do you know what I mean?

Like accept that comment that you make. You sort of go, there's so much luck to this. You know, I think comedy is a meritocracy up to a point but then you just get lucky and you know so i i do feel really lucky but and don't get wrong i'm very grateful but do you work hard now in your in your estimation well i work a lot i mean there's no doubt about that whether i work hard or not is another question i mean i just like everything i do is like fun i know that's such a wanky thing to say but like i love doing stand-up i love doing panel shows i love doing travel show like

this doesn't ever feel like i'm working hard the only struggle i would say is that i'm away a lot do you mean and like i i'm kind of saying to my family i'll see in a week like you know that bit i've had to sort of I've actually had to take I've had to sort of take action on really because sometimes like when you're doing a lot of travel shows it's not really fair you know to be away as much as I have been in the past but I don't feel like I work hard like I really love what I do like I love what I do so much and I know that's like a really privileged position to be in and sometimes I'm going to be honest if i'm working on a script at three in the morning because i've got like i've got a major deadline i do think oh god this is bullshit i am working hard now do you mean but it's still

fun i'm still writing a script about some guy i'm still writing a script being trying to be funny you know that's what all of my day is when you've come from where you come from and you believe that you're lucky is there not this kind of overarching or this driving force that's like fuck you can lose this at any minute 100 i mean you think about it like my my dad was going all right and then it all went wrong and then i was a teacher i took a gamble on comedy and then we were broke so i've had two examples of like of it going like you know everything going so definitely there is part of me i don't consciously think that there is definitely part of me you know when you think about how much

how much you're willing to hustle i think part of that comes from feeling insecure yeah a little bit i do think so i do think so but now what i would say to you sitting here now if it all went if i stopped being on tv now or like the phone stopped ringing or whatever i'll be cool it's fine do you mean i just i just don't i'm just not worried about that anymore you know like you i will always do stand up and if And if the TV stops and all that kind of stuff stops, I feel kind of comfortable. I'm all right. It'll be fine.

You'll see me down the park and you go, that guy looks like that guy that used to host League of Rome. I hate this word, but I'm going to ask the question anyway. Are you happy? I know that I've talked a lot about my inner voice and all of that and how i've struggled with that but i am happy yeah i i do i do consider myself to be happy i think like i've got a great i've got a great situation you know i've got a beautiful family i'm happy with being able to um to do nice things i'm sort of my my mom's in a good position my brother's in a good position i love my job you know all of

those things i do i do feel happy do i have dark moments where i descend into into like troubled times yeah 100 but that's not happiness isn't buzzing off your tits the whole time do you mean what is it i think it's like going i'm in a state of i i mean generally speaking it's like you know it's like the stock exchange you know you're gonna have ups and downs but generally speaking you're on a decent you're on a decent trajectory and i feel like i I am, you know. If one of your boys, Alex Charlie Theo, comes to you and says, Dad, right, I'm going out into the world. Based on your lived experience,

what wisdom do I need to know, Dad, to make it in life, to be happy and to get to where I want to go? What are the things that spring to mind that you would impart on those boys? Well, you know, you asked me about me lazy and and I still believe I am lazy and the way that I have managed to life hack that is to do things that I really do enjoy so I think for them choose something that you really feel passionate about that you really love and don't for me personally don't think about this external this goal down the line that you're trying to get to do this thing brilliantly do you mean do eat like every single thing you come to do

do that to the best of your ability so when i do a gig it doesn't help me to think about what this gig could lead to i just need to be great at this gig, I just need to do the best I possibly can at this gig, I'm not in control of anything that happens after that, so every single step of the way, you try and do that the best that you possibly can, if you do that, if you love what you

do and you do that I just think you're on a good path They have a relationship don't they, those two points in the sense that when you love it, you can become a master because you do it for fun. Yeah. Hard, like things that feel like shit stuff, like things you don't enjoy, it's hard to master.

Yeah, but also the other thing is, even if you do enjoy something, like if I do a panel show and I'm thinking about what the potential career path of that, if I do well on this panel show, then somebody will see me on this, and then I'll get booked for that. And then if I start getting booked for that,

maybe somebody will offer my own show. If you sit in a studio with that in your head, God help you. Do you know what I mean? Or you've got to do it. I'm not in control of that. I don't, that's so outside of, I can't do anything about that.

What I can do something about is being as good as I possibly can in this immediate circumstance. That's all I can't do anything about that what I can do something about is being as good as I possibly can in this immediate circumstance that's all I can do and then everything else takes care of itself do you mean and it might happen it might not but why am I thinking about that all that will do is tighten me up when I'm here I need to be like I need to be in the moment I need to just be loose and having a good time and then not worry about that it reminds me so much of what Sir David Brailsford said to me about the British cycling team he said one of the first things he and having a good time and then not worry about that it reminds me so much of what sir david brailsford said to me about the british cycling team he said one of the first things he did when

he came into that failing cycling team was get them to stop thinking about the podium right right right because all the emotional impact that has when you're racing when you're thinking about the medals or yeah and even when you're you're in training thinking about the podium is is not conducive with being productive and focused. His whole thing was like, can we find a way to be 1% better today? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's controllable. When people, when they find that gain,

they have that sense of momentum and it's exactly what you've described there. I like focus on the controllables and not the fear that's induced by the anxiety of like, oh, what happens if next that, you know. 100% man. Which kind of, which goes against the self-development community who are all like five year plan it that you know which 100% man which is which kind of which goes against the

self-development community who are all like five year plan it you know yeah I know I know I did I did think to myself do I need to do that but I have no plan I like you know I don't know I just think like it's like you know when people go and lots of people I know that are really successful do this where they go I want to get a bafta by whenever right to my mind i just think there are there's so many variables outside of your control to get in a bath like why would you give yourself a target that's so outside of your like so many things could happen that are nothing to do with your ability or anything to get you a bafta it's like there's a jury somebody on that jury might not like you know like there's so many uncontrolled why would you do that to yourself do you know what I mean it's

like what I can go is I want this show to be really good I want this show to make me laugh I want to make something I'm proud of I can do that do you know what I mean like that's that's inside the realms of possibility seems like a much happier psychological world to live in to be to live in the controllables than to be like because then you don't get the bafta the unmet expectation of that person on the jury that didn't like you yeah it's like you're right it's like unnecessary torture yeah we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest not knowing who they're asking it for and the question that's been left for you is how will we make progress in solving the crisis of meaning today oh what an absolute stitch are you joking that's literally what it's

should i should i i'll give you some context yeah go because i remember that oh my god we're having such a nice time oh my god yeah go pay it forward and stitch up the next person yeah um basically the guy was talking about how life expectancy for the for the last two years has begun to drop. And what he pointed out was that it's, it's to do with sort of a, a broader epidemic of meaninglessness in people's lives where they're turning to opioids, suicide.

And those are the things that are contributing to this crisis of meaning. So he's saying, how will we make progress in solve this crisis of meaning where people's lives don't feel meaningful enough. So they're turning to opioids they're becoming depressed they're you know dying by suicide he's saying how do we go about solving that today well i don't know but what i would say is one of the things that i noticed during the the pandemic was like when people's jobs were taken away or they couldn't do their jobs

and people weren't able to socialise, people's identities completely disappeared. Like they just didn't know what they were. Like, you know, you go, if I'm not going to my job and I'm not seeing people or I'm not doing things, what the hell is this do you mean and i think that if people that had other stuff that they could do i mean creatives were able to like do stuff and find some purpose and do stuff not necessarily for people's consumption

but just to sort of to sort of scratch that itch i think if you can get people to to allow themselves to kind of engage with things that are outside of this kind of I'm doing this for this and I'm doing this if you can get people to to engage in things that are for their own kind of enrichment outside of fine you know outside of a job and outside of all this then I think you that's a way of equipping people sort of more effectively to to find that i guess would be a freestyle dancer to this i completely agree no i completely agree we've talked about that a lot how the arts and um realizing that we can all be artists it's not just a job title um even if you're a lawyer you can pursue that yeah the teachers pursuing those bands they're in um and i can i

reflect on the huge impact it's had on me becoming, starting learning to DJ in the middle of the pandemic. That's what I did. Really? Yeah, how are you getting on? You know, I'm not going to sell out any festivals just yet. I did my first gig the other day.

I'm shit, but I'm at the top end of shit. Yeah, got you so how are you getting on well I do a hip hop show on radio well no well

you have a show yeah no but I don't I don't DJ on the show I just talk and some like you know I just play

you know I don't mix on it okay so they gave me a challenge I'm just giving I'm just telling you this so I was learning to DJ they said

they knew I was learning to DJ so they gave me this piece of paper on the show saying Romesh by the end of this series we want you to do a 20 minute mix for the show and then as we were talking about it they're going it'd be great and then you can do regular mixes

anyway I went off and did the 20 minute mix I submitted the mix they played it I've not been asked to do another one that perceived start of a series of Romesh mixes has evaporated

after they heard that first mix did you not ask for feedback no I don't want feedback if they don't ask you for another one I don't need that feedback

I know what the feedback is practice Romesh thank you so much for your time today huge honor to speak to you and your story is because of the way I can relate to it it's been incredibly inspiring and I appreciate your honesty I'm like I said when you were talking about the voice in your head I literally my whole body had these goosebumps and I felt this huge wave of sadness because I don't think people realize and people that have the privilege of having a a positive voice in their head one we I don't think people realize and people that have the privilege of having a positive voice in their head. I don't understand.

Yeah. You know, I don't understand that the idea that my head can turn against me. Right. We need to have that conversation more because it helps us to understand, like have empathy. Yeah, yeah.

You know, so thank you so much. No, thanks for having me, man. I was really enjoying it up until that last question. Well, you can stitch someone up now. Let's do this. Thank you, man. enjoying it up until that last question well you can stitch someone up now let's do this thank you