Comedian Romesh Ranganathan discusses his transition from travel documentaries to investigating the mysterious deaths of cultural icons Tupac Shakur, Nancy Spungen, and Jimi Hendrix in his new BBC Two and iPlayer series, The Misinvestigations of Romesh Ranganathan.
Hi Romesh. We’re used to seeing you travelling the world and exploring interesting places as part of your Misadventures series, but Misinvestigations sees you focusing instead on infamous celebrity deaths. Why the gear change?
We wanted to find a fun way of doing a celeb biopic while also doing a true crime style show. This ticked all (both) of the boxes.
In the series, you gently poke fun at true crime documentaries. Are you a fan of the genre?
I’m a huge fan, but we wanted to do a, sort of, take off of the tropes of those types of shows. It’s an homage.
Could this series mark the start of a new career for you? Detective Ranganathan has a nice ring to it…
I think that’s unlikely. People already say I do too much. This might be taking the piss.
Did you seek inspiration from any famous detectives – real-life or fictional – for the series?
I would love to say Luther but I think comparing myself to Idris [Elba] would lead to a backlash that my wife would spearhead.
Why were you specifically interested in exploring the lives and deaths of Tupac, Nancy and Jimi?
They are all people who moved the cultural needle and also passed away in circumstances that are still being speculated about today – perhaps as a result of the manner in which they were idolised.
Did your investigations teach you anything new about celebrity culture and about how society and the media treated these cultural figures in life and death?
I think that the media has had a huge part to play in the perception of these people, as well as their deaths. Nancy Spungen’s portrayal in the media was particularly distasteful.
What did you learn from Dr Julia Shaw, the criminal psychologist who assisted you with your investigations?
The brilliant Dr Shaw not only displayed an analytical mind that far surpassed anything I could have mustered, but she also taught me to remove any bias in both my analysis of clues and answers, and to recognise the bias in my own questioning.
