Romesh Ranganathan: Rom Com

The litany of things Romesh Ranganathan hates is as long as a midsummer day. He hates everything from obvious targets such as The X Factor and the English Defence League to more personal objects of ire, like all kids, including his own.

In fact, he may be the only comedian on this year’s Fringe gunning to emulate the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Rom Com’s conceit is that Ranganathan loathes how romantic comedies show boy meeting girl, boy falling in love with girl, and boy marrying girl. The end.

Ranganathan is here to pick up where these rose-tinted films leave off. And his dispatches from the other side are not pretty. Everything disappoints him, most of all himself. He describes going out with his 30-something friends and realising they look like “shit tribute acts to ourselves in our 20s.”

All this enmity is not delivered with venomous rage, but more like a slightly bored maths teacher whose will to uphold social niceties broke years ago. He is resigned to his hatred.

Frankly, all of which gets rather tedious. He may have misanthropy nailed, but a lot of his punchlines are under-developed. This is frustrating as Ranganathan is obviously a talented performer. His sociopathic delivery is sharp, but, just as with humanity, he gives up too soon on his jokes. Many are one step shy of a potential sucker punch.

Rom Com may be about Ranganathan’s discontentment with life, but sadly this feeling leaks out from the stage and hangs over the show itself.