Hello All,
January is a load of shit isn’t it?
The first thing of note that happened to me in 2013 is that I was cast to play a small part in a German film. I was cast less for my innate ability than I was as a result of the scarce number of naturally occurring English speaking brown men in Germany. Everybody involved with this film were extremely nice and it was a lot of fun. It is, I should point out, an extremely small part. I was playing an Indian businessman, who gets very angry. Unfortunately this is not followed by him turning into a large beast and smashing the shit out of stuff. I did get to slap someone though.
The film crew could all spoke English, and I speak absolutely no German. This made for 2 days of them apologising for having a much better grasp of English than I will ever have of German.
I also don’t think I have experienced anything much more awkward than the make up lady handing me a nose hair trimmer and saying “Please deal wis zis area”, before checking to make sure that I had sufficiently felled the nasal forest.
I had to slap a young man across the face twice in the scene. They had a stunt coordinator in to make sure that I had done this correctly. What I didn’t realise until afterwards, was that I had been off camera for the first 15 takes, and so had been slapping this guy repeatedly for no discernible reason. He knew that I didn’t have to and so must have just been thinking that I had acquired a taste for it and was just some sort of vicious English twat.
More recently I had a horrendous experience before a gig. I turned up early, and needed the toilet. When I asked the staff, they told me that the Gents was Out of Order and asked me to use the Ladies’ toilet.
Immediately I started assessing neighbouring buildings to ascertain whether they might have a gender compatible toilet available. I quickly established, however, that if I didn’t want to “mess myself” I would have to use the ladies’ toilet.
My first mistake was to use the middle cubicle. This strategy meant that I was heightening the chances of being flanked by women, which would undoubtedly increase the stress levels of this whole episode.
It was while I was in the cubicle, that two women walked into the room. My stress levels immediately increased. There was no way I could leave the toilet until they had completed their toiletary transactions and left.
This would have been where the story ended for most people, but of course I am Romesh Ranganathan and so things have to become more complicated. Apparently I was in the only cubicle that had any toilet tissue. I know this, because I heard a voice from somewhere near my cubicle say “Is there any toilet tissue in that middle one?”
Now I was in quite serious trouble. I could not answer, because that would inevitably lead to the woman freaking out. So I then had to decide whether my hands looked feminine enough to pass her some toilet tissue without her identifying that somebody had smuggled a penis into the ladies toilets.
This didn’t work of course. I spent a couple of minutes waving the toilet tissue under the door and either side of me but it didn’t get taken. I was starting to get a little bit panicky.
What eventually happened, was that the woman, not seeing any response from my cubicle, just said “Fine then” and went into the cubicle to my left and started pissing in a manner that I think I am right in identifying as “angrily.”
I now knew that I would be in that toilet for a long time. She was going to leave, and then wait near the door to see who the rude bitch was that didn’t respond to her. When she did see that the bitch was in fact me, there is no telling what her reaction would be. My only hope was to wait long enough for her to think that the cubicle was locked because it was out of order. I may have left 45 minutes later, but I left with my dignity intact. I did also later find out that the barmaid had made a mistake and that the Gents’ were not out of order. Can you imagine if I had spoken from the cubicle and that woman had gone off to check my story? I would be typing this from prison. I IMAGINE THAT THEY HAVE MORE RELIABLE WIFI THAN THIS BLOODY COFFEE HOUSE.
Anyway that’s it – except for two plugs :
1) On the 18th February, I am doing a work in progress hour at The Leicester Comedy Festival – At 3 quid, it is one of the cheapest shows at the festival, and I need to sell all of the tickets to stop my wife leaving me. Please. I need this.
Tickets here : http://www.comedy-festival.co.uk/events/show.php?event_id=2789&showdate=2013-02-18&venue=335
I am also recording a Radio Pilot for the BBC on February 19th. It’s an interactive show, and it would be great to fill the room out with lovely people. Details below the sign off.
BYE!
R
ROMESH FIGHTS YOUR CORNER- BBC RADIO COMEDY PILOT
Ever walked away from an argument thinking “If only I’d said that…”
Romesh Ranganathan wants to stop that happening to you ever again.
This is the show designed to tool you up with a fail-safe conversational arsenal, so you can avoid embarrassment in a variety of hostile social situations.
At 7pm on Tuesday 19th of February at Brighton’s Three and Ten , Romesh will help you navigate the perilous social waters of THE DINNER PARTY.
This show will require audience participation, so come ready with your killer opinions on:
· Should we donate money to charity?
· Is vegetarianism pointless?
And come ready to finally share ‘THAT THING YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID’ to a sympathetic comedy crowd.
Tickets and more info available soon. – to reserve a ticket now, please send an e-mail with the Subject : “Romesh Fights Your Corner” to me@romeshranganathan.com