[applause, music]
Hello!
[crowd cheers]
What an honour it is to be performing for His Royal Highness, thank you very much.
Particularly as before I did standup
I used to make my living as a Prince Harry lookalike.
[audience laughter after each joke]
I'm sort of worried, Prince Harry looks gorgeous.
My wife really does quite fancy you.
But I am aging horribly.
I'm putting on a lot of weight, I'm worried about it.
I'm very self-conscious about my body.
Just recently I woke up one morning. I went to the bathroom,
I looked at my chocolate blancmange torso in the mirror.
I went back to the bedroom and I apologized to my wife for my appearance.
And she accepted my apology. So --
I've tried to put a positive spin on it.
I said to my wife, d'you know what, I've grown this for you.
I've grown this to take myself out of the game.
You're welcome.
The truth is I love my wife. I do love her very much.
She deserves better than me,
but I cannot be bothered to provide it.
I just can't!
I figured to myself, I don't have to be an excellent husband,
I just have to be slightly less annoying than starting divorce proceedings.
I feel that's --
that's the way I'm going to operate.
I am married to a white woman.
I'm telling you that because it's essential for the story. I'm not showing off.
My brother is also married to a white woman. A different one.
We don't roll like that.
But last Christmas my mother invited us all 'round for Christmas dinner.
Absolutely delightful! She invited my wife's family,
she invited my sister-in-law's family, all come 'round for Christmas dinner.
Absolutely delightful.
And she did two dinners. She did two dinners.
She did a traditional turkey dinner, and she did a curry.
And she said, just sit near the one you want.
Our Christmas dinner table
looked like a bus pre-Rosa Parks.
It was absolutely insane.
[Sri Lankan accent] Merry Christmas!
"Welcome to our apartheid simulation.
"Oh, no no, Whitey, you're gonna have a horrible Boxing Day if you eat that.
"Too spicy for you."
[normal voice] I do love my wife. I'm not good enough for that woman.
That's the honest truth of it. I'm not good enough.
I've realized recently, I'm a fake feminist.
I dunno if there are any of those in the room.
But basically what I mean by that is I say all the right things,
but I don't know if I mean it.
Like, I'll say to my wife I wanna help her achieve her dreams, hopes and aspirations,
but it would be a lot more convenient to me if she didn't have any.
Yes?
There's somebody whooping over there.
You shouldn't be proud of whooping at that, mate.
But the thing is, what that does is it makes me wanna step up
and prove myself to my wife.
It makes me wanna step up and do the right thing by her.
And I had the opportunity to step up for our family,
because our eldest son had to go to school
and we had to choose a school for our son
and I said to my wife, y'know what, I know I don't do enough,
I'd like to step up and choose a school for our son.
I'd like to be in charge of this operation.
To cut a long story short,
I chose a school that was shut down for not meeting government requirements.
Now that is a difficult situation. But in fairness to me,
why on earth are we having to make qualitative judgments about schools?
Here's a solution: make 'em all good, I'll pick the nearest one.
All right?
Why would you not want to invest more money
in making the future less thick?
Morons are taking over, aren't they?
And they're reproducing more quickly than us.
For every intelligent person using a condom,
there are two dipsticks using clingfilm.
"I've used the whole roll! I think it's go-time!" Y'know?
I'm helping my eldest son learn to read, actually.
I don't know if anyone here has helped a child learn to read.
It is one of the most -- have you done it?
It is -- isn't it magical? It's one of the most magical and rewarding things
that I think you can do as a parent.
The first time that you do it.
After that, it's one of the most irritating, annoying ...
waste of time, would rather punch myself in the face
than ever do this activity again, that you can do. And let me tell you why.
He does not care, this kid, about making sense.
He'll just rattle off the words, all the little words:
"If, and, but, dadadadadadada ..."
Rattle those off. When he gets to a long word, a difficult word, instead of trying,
he'll just look at the picture and throw something random in from there,
without any regard for what effect that has on the rest of the sentence.
And I'm supposed to not get angry!
I'm supposed to not get angry when he goes,
"Jack ... went ...
"um ... um ... strawberry?"
How could that possibly be what it said, mate?
Out of all of the words that you know, how could it in any way have been strawberry?
What about this story made you think that the next thing Jack was going to do
was go strawberry? Have you even heard that phrase?
Have you ever heard Mummy saying, "I'm off to go strawberry"?
Have you ever heard it? So, so, what was going on in your head?
What would that even look like, Jack going strawberry. What would it look like?
Now you tell me, what would it look like?
I tell you what, you think that's what it said,
why don't you go strawberry now? Go on, you go strawberry now.
Stop crying! Go strawberry. Go strawberry.
[yelling] 'Cause that's what you said it says!
I didn't say it!
If I said it I'd be going strawberry all over the shop, mate.
My wife thinks I'm overreacting, right? And I know that that looks bad,
I realize that, but let me tell you this: it comes from a good place.
I want my son to be educated. I want him to have the world at his feet.
I don't want him to be a moron.
I don't wanna knock on his door in 20 years' time.
He opens it, he's just scratching himself, "Heu heu, all right, Dad?
"How ya doin'?" I say to him, "What's wrong with you?"
He says, "I think I'm allergic to clingfilm."
Ladies and gentlemen, I've been Romesh Ranganathan.
Thank you, good night!
[applause, music]