Romesh Ranganathan

The Must-Sees of 2016: comedy

Featuring Billy Connolly, Isy Suttie, Vic and Bob, Frankie Boyle, Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Delaney, Julian Clary and Sara Pascoe.

Looking back on what has been a notably depressing year, it might seem a near-impossible task to pick out moments worthy of levity. Thankfully, that is the job of Jimmy Carr and regular team captains Jon Richardson and Sean Lock, old hands at refashioning the awfulness of the real world into digestible chunks of frippery. Panellists Isy Suttie, Richard Osman, Joey Essex and Romesh Ranganathan assist them, while elsewhere games and surprises are promised.

A seasonal episode of the show that - like the Twitter account it grew from - does pretty basic observational comedy, but does it pretty well. On TV, it helps that the status of the contributors is bewilderingly high: sitting in various lovely interiors tonight are David Tennant, James Corden, Rich Hall, Romesh Ranganathan, Catherine Tate and Danny Dyer. Among the agonies wryly shared are how much to pay carol singers and when to abandon a bad party.

Penultimate episode of the sitcom starring self-deprecating comic Josh Widdicombe as a fictive version of himself. Despite a shaky start, it has slowly moved away from sub-Peep Show flatshare gags, and tonight's outing is its funniest yet. Landlord Geoff (Jack Dee) has let out his flat for London fashion week, and packed Josh, Kate and Owen off to Clacton. Unfortunately for the friends, he's tagging along, too, with an awkward nephew and an unlikely proposition for Josh. The Chuckle Brothers and Romesh Ranganathan guest star.

Romesh Ranganathan on getting embarrassed by his mum

Comedian Romesh Ranganathan very reluctantly agreed when his mum asked him to explore his Sri Lankan roots for new BBC Three show Asian Provocateur. So, much to Romesh's regret, we gave him and mum Shanthi a call to see what makes their relationship so special...

Romesh Ranganathan interview

For his new BBC3 series, the London-based comedian went to Sri Lanka to explore his roots and basically sweat a lot. Here are six things he 'learned'.

Taskmaster is the kind of Dave thing that shouldn't quite work but is actually wildly stupid fun. Mainly thanks to Alex Horne, late of so much splendid radio, and Greg Davies, and regulars such as Frank Skinner and Romesh Ranganathan. And eating a watermelon in a minute, and having to paint a horse while riding a horse and other activities that would have been unsuited to, say, Queen Victoria's funeral. A winner.

Radio Times review

As a civilisation, we're starting to realise that asking questions about news or trivia from behind a desk isn't the best way to wring semi-improvised laughs out of moderately popular comedians. Far wiser to make them do something less restrictive, where the thing itself is funny before anyone starts. So we come to this fun new jolly, where titular Taskmaster Greg Davies - flanked by the show's creator Alex Horne - awards comics marks for eating as much watermelon as they can in a minute, emptying a bathtub without pulling the plug out, or painting a horse while riding a horse.

The comfortingly familiar guests are Frank Skinner, Josh Widdicombe, Roisin Conaty, Romesh Ranganathan and Tim Key. Skinner is a good weathervane, since he's been around far too long to bother laughing politely at unfunny jokes. Here, he laughs a lot.

Stand-ups pick the best comedy clubs

Keith Farnan, Carl Hutchinson, Kerry Godliman, Romesh Ranganathan, Richard Herring, Phil Wang, Chris Turner, Lucy Beaumont, Katie Mulgrew, Phil Nichol, Ahir Shah, Juliet Meyers, Tiff Stevenson, Rachel Parris, Stephen K Amos and Andrew Maxwell name their favourite comedy clubs.