Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan: ‘I don’t think you really get cancelled any more’

“I’m gonna try and get him cancelled,” Romesh Ranganathan says, nodding towards Rob Beckett. “That’s the hope anyway. I’ll just go, ‘Rob, what’s your view on…’” Beckett whips his head round in protest. “But it’s so much easier for me to get cancelled than you!”

It’s one way to approach your first time hosting the television Bafta Awards, which the pair of them will do for the first time in a couple of weeks. In reality, Ranganathan, 45, and Beckett, 37 – two comics of such reliable ubiquity that, like Trident submarines of light entertainment, one or both of them is almost always circulating on British television or radio at any given time – are about as safe a booking as you can find.

Not that it’s a bad thing. They may not be particularly edgy (“Hey, I’ve got a bit of edge, I spoke about smokers on my last tour…” Beckett protests), but they’re definitely funny. Today, they’re squirrelled in a small, uninteresting boardroom at Bafta’s headquarters in Piccadilly, bringing a riot of colour to the place by competing to make each other laugh as much as anybody else.

They take over from Richard Ayoade, who hosted the past three ceremonies, including lending his specific awkwardness to the specifically awkward lockdown iterations. Ranganathan and Beckett have assiduously avoided watching past presenters, but they'll be well aware of what works and what doesn’t. It is a tricky balance: Richard E Grant and Allison Hammond were criticised for being too “luvvie” at the Bafta film awards in February, but too arch and you might not be asked back.

The Academy itself has had a difficult few years. Two years ago, for instance, it gave an Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award to Noel Clarke, then had to retract it when allegations of verbal abuse, bullying and sexual harassment (which Clarke denied) were levelled against him by 20 women a few weeks later. A lack of diversity among nominations is another frequent charge, to the extent that in 2020 its president, Prince William, felt moved enough to tell a primetime audience: “Not for the first time in the last few years, we find ourselves talking again about the need to do more to ensure diversity in the sector and in the awards process. That simply cannot be right in this day and age.”

But where the film awards have struggled, the TV version is a solid performer, especially with audiences – ratings for last year's ceremony were up 1.4 million on 2021.

If Ranganathan and Beckett are apprehensive, they don't show it. An hour in their company feels like eavesdropping on two particularly witty mates, and if you’ve seen Rob & Romesh VS…, the Sky show in which they travel the world taking on challenges (race Usain Bolt, try and become strongmen, run their own restaurant for the night), you’ll know their warm and watchable rapport is genuine. Like all the best friendships, it’s almost entirely based on mockery. They met over a decade ago, while playing pub gigs and competitions around the country.

“He always beat me, but I beat him in the diversity battle,” Ranganathan deadpans.

“No comment,” Beckett says.

“You can't afford to comment...”

One of the reasons they've been booked for the Baftas, Beckett says, is “probably that we’ll talk about us and our relationship, rather than a hit list of stuff.”

Even if they were to take arms, they’re not great believers in the culture war. “I don’t think you really get cancelled any more, you just can’t get an audience,” he continues. Ranganathan agrees. “It does feel like that time of everybody sh***ing themselves about cancel culture and stuff like that [is over].”

“Don’t get me wrong, it happens – but I just don’t agree with this, ‘You can’t say anything any more…’ thing, I just think that’s b******s. The people who say that want to just exclusively talk about the thing they feel they can’t say.”

In Beckett’s case, he knows that jokes about some issues just aren’t worth including – at least if he wants to avoid his Twitter account blowing up. “Like, I know that [with] JK Rowling and Harry Potter, there’s something’s going on with it, I don’t really know [what] though. All I know is: ‘Don’t mention JK Rowling or Harry Potter at all.’ You just think, that’s a red zone, that’s going to cause problems, don’t mention that.”

Ranganathan arches an eyebrow.

“Feel free to mention it on the night, though…”

Despite being best mates who are often booked to host together, (they did the Royal Variety Show four years ago, where Ranganathan joked that “it’s taken them 106 of these until they decided to brown it up”), Beckett and Ranganathan are resolutely not a double act. With an eight-year age gap, they met on the circuit, have never toured together, and host podcasts with other comedians – Beckett does Parenting Hell with Josh Widdicombe, Ranganathan does Wolf and Owl with Tom Davis.

“On paper we’re very different, but you just gravitate towards people, don’t you?” Ranganathan says. He is a vegan, Hindu-born son of Sri Lankan immigrants who, until his parents emigrated to Crawley in 1975, came from a bloodline that was pure South Asian for 25,000 years. “Imagine breaking a 25,000-year streak to arrive in Crawley,” he sighed, upon learning this fact when he and Beckett appeared on DNA Journey last year.

Ranganathan was a maths teacher until giving it up for comedy in his early 30s (his first name is Jonathan, Romesh is his middle name). Beckett, by contrast, is the son of a lorry and cab driver from south-east London, who worked at a flower market until he started standup aged 23 and was, if not a household name, then a household face within three years. His rise coincided with Ranganathan’s.

But they did both marry former teachers, Leesa and Louise; both have young children (Ranganathan and Leesa have three, Beckett and Louise have two); did both once work in Sainsbury’s; and have both written memoirs that interrogate Britain’s class system. Beckett’s A Class Act: Life As a Working-Class Man in a Middle-Class World, exposed the inequities of comedy as much as society generally.

“The Edinburgh [Fringe] was the biggest thing for me,” Ranganathan says, “doing the circuit, there’s no real barriers to entry, though you do run at a loss. But with Edinburgh, it can cost £10,000 to go and spend a month up there. Some people just can’t do that. I remember auditioning for a place up there and it was £2,000 to take part. On top of accommodation and the rest. So even though it is theoretically a level playing field, if you haven’t got a cushion, it’s significantly harder.”

Beckett would steer clear entirely now. “I tell new comedians not to even bother with Edinburgh,” he says. “Just do the circuit, learn how to do gigs all around the country, and get an online presence. I just think, why go up there, to perform for a bit of an echo chamber anyway. I’d tell my mates I was going to Edinburgh for August, they’d be like ‘Why?’ I’d say for the Fringe. They’d say ‘What’s that?’ I’d say oh basically you pay loads of money to go and perform to people. ‘Why?’ I don’t know…

“I think sometimes people don’t get what you mean by ‘proper skint’. People will go, ‘Oh, I’ve just got no money this month…’ But you know they’ve got a 20 grand savings account their parents set up – and that’s fine, that’s what I’ll do for my kids – but sometimes people don’t get it.”

Soon after this comment, Ranganathan pauses, to laugh and point out Beckett struggling with a loose tea strainer and pot. “See, this is how grassroots he is. He usually just drinks tea out of a ditch…” Beckett grins. “Just getting used to the old Bafta ways. I’m usually just a bag in, bag out bloke.”

They both distinctly remember the moment they realised they were making decent money from comedy: Beckett filled up his car with an entire tank of petrol (he and his brother used to see who could avoid being the person driving their shared car before it ran out) for the first time. Ranganathan was able to book “the top level accommodation at Butlin’s”, where his family always used to holiday.

Having kids made them better comics, they both reckon. Looser, less bothered about stuff, with a healthy perspective on what’s important – as well as an unavoidable comfort in chaos. It wasn’t that way when they were younger.

“Oh yeah, if you don’t think much of yourself, and you find something you’re good at, your self-worth comes from what you’re doing, not from inside,” Beckett says. “In my twenties I was using external affirmation: they’re cheering, I’m good. Now, I’m not taking my self-worth from work any more. But when you’re in your twenties and you’ve always felt shit about yourself, it can be destructive.”

Both of them have talked a lot about their mental health challenges, including suicidal thoughts. Ranganathan’s darkest period came in his late teens, a few years after his father was sent to prison for fraud and the family home repossessed. Beckett was close to a breakdown in 2020, after which he saw a therapist for six months.

“As time has moved on, as mental health has become more talked about and less stigmatised, our ability to recognise it and deal with it has become better. I’ve been in and out of therapy, I know Rob has. In the past, that wasn’t what happened,” Ranganathan says. Both of them have always been fairly clean living, as is the way with many modern comics.

“I think that’s why a lot of people who started when we did and didn’t do drugs zoomed up. It’s quite hard to compete with people who are younger, hungrier… and also not on a comedown.”

Not that they’re working *too* hard any more, despite both having stand-up tours this year and another series of Rob & Romesh VS…, plus a children’s book for Ranganathan and a podcast tour for Beckett. Romesh’s show is called Hustle, partly as he’ll target “hustle culture” – the modern emphasis on hyper-productivity and ambition instead of work-life balance or rest.

“I just feel like we’re already too far down the road of hard working culture in this country, so this whole thing of every morning being an opportunity for you to make a list of things you want to smash that day…”

Beckett cuts him off: “The reality is that you want to be high paid, for low effort. High blag. When I worked at Sainsbury’s, I’d work out how little I could do in an hour. When I worked in an office, I’d put ice cubes in the kettles, then ask people if they wanted tea, because I knew that’d take up 10 minutes of my time, not two.”

Ranganathan smiles. “People who say you should work harder, that’s very easy to say when you’re in the privilege of being in a job you enjoy, and find satisfying. If you’re not enjoying it, do as little as you can get away with.”

It’s fair to say both Ranganathan and Beckett have both found something they enjoy, and they’re very good at it. In a couple of weeks, they’ve got their biggest gig yet. From shelf-stacking in Sainsbury’s to the most establishment slot in the calendar. Beckett grins again.

“I know, it’s quite funny really. I’m trying to think of it as just another job.”

The BAFTA Television Awards with P&O Cruises are on BBC One at 7pm on 14 May