Romesh Ranganathan considered quitting comedy

The 44-year-old star who is is known for his deadpan and often self-deprecating comedy quit his career as a teacher in order to become a comedian – but Romesh has now revealed that he actually considered walking away from stand-up at one time.

He explained: “I was providing for my family when I was a teacher. But what I decided was … I decided that wasn’t good enough for me. I want to do the thing I really want to do – chasing your dream is one thing and making sacrifices to chase your dream is fine. When you force sacrifices upon other people to chase your dream, that is slightly less noble. And that is something that like I had to reconcile with.”

Romesh actually told his wife Leesa that he intended to quit his comedy career. But the TV star had a late change of heart after winning a competition.

He revealed “I found Leesa that morning, I said, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to Leicester this competition. I think I’m going to quit’. And she goes, ‘Just go do the competition, come home, let’s have a chat about it’. And I said, ‘I’m going to go back to teaching, I can’t do this anymore’. And then I went to Leicester. And then I don’t know if it’s I thought this is going to be my last gig or I’m going to quit soon … but the stars aligned, and I won that competition.

“But that in my head, it wasn’t like massive money or whatever. I think a couple of grand was the prize but winning the competition was like a validation. If I hadn’t won that competition, I would have quit comedy.”

Romesh Ranganathan and Katherine Ryan recently joined forces for brand-new high-octane Sky Original comedy drama, Romantic Getaway.