Book info

• Title Straight Outta Crawley
• Author Romesh Ranganathan
• Year 2018
• Genre Memoir

At the age of 9, Romesh Ranganathan delivered his first ever stand-up set at a Pontin's holiday camp talent competition, smashing the other competitor, a young girl playing the kazoo. The gig went so well that Romesh retired his comic genius for twenty-two years, hiding behind the guise of a maths teacher, before finally revealing himself again (no, not like that) at the tender age of 31. In 2010, Ranganathan staged his epic comeback gig to an almost silent room, and has since gone on to earn his place as the most in-demand overweight vegan Sri Lankan comedian in Britain. Now, for the first time, he tells the full story of how he got here. From the delights of Sri Lankan hospitality to his struggles as a child, teacher and now parent, to his adolescent flirtation with a rap career and his attempts to make it in comedy, Straight Outta Crawley is Ranganathan's hilarious and irreverent autobiography.

Thoughts

I loved this. Romesh writes his memoir with exactly the write tone and balance between stories and jokes. Sometimes comedians shoehorn jokes in that just don’t work on the written page but for me, Romesh’s stories were both hilarious and honest in equal measure. It’s nice to hear the behind the scenes of a journey to stage and screen, via teaching of all things, and Romesh opens up about his approach to writing comedy and what gets included in his material.

Rating: 5 / 5