A year ago, Romesh Ranganathan visited the Arctic to film a Christmas episode of the Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan. It was the hardest trip he has taken in his life – it was minus 40 degrees, he had to camp in a tent on a frozen ocean and he had to go to the toilet in a bin bag. This year, he has agreed to do another Christmas episode - on the strict understanding that he will not go anywhere cold.\n\nAnd so Rom is travelling to the Sahara Desert.\n\nOwing to the tradition of shooting Christmas episodes in July, he has arrived at the hottest time of the year – over the next week temperatures will rise to 50 degrees Celsius. An inescapable wall of heat beats down from above, rises up from the sand below and makes everyone massively narky. \n\nGuided by Bobo, a local of Berber descent who was born and grew up in the desert, Rom discovers a place that is vast and inhospitable - at once impossibly bleak and impossibly beautiful.\n\nHis journey takes him from Marrakesh in Morocco all the way through the Sahara to the ocean in Western Sahara, 700 miles further south. Along the way, he takes in hot air balloon rides and obscure villages where they make world-famous pottery, and he learns how to treat your arm if you get bitten by a snake (cut open a dog and stick your arm inside its dying carcass). Rom meets nomads who have learned to survive in the middle of the desert, endures sand storms, hears about the largely forgotten war fought for control of Western Sahara and discovers why indigenous people are abandoning the desert in record numbers. \n\nEpic, informative and ever so slightly silly, Romesh’s misadventures in the Sahara shine a light on one of the most overlit places on earth.
Source: BBC 2
Series 3: 1. Sierra Leone
When trying to place Sierra Leone, Romesh finds it impossible to think of anything other than the country’s dark history - a horrific civil war, child soldiers, blood diam ...
15-09-2024
BBC 2
Series 4: 3. Madagascar
In the final part of his African odyssey, Romesh travels to the 4th largest island in the world – Madagascar. But like most people, when he brings to mind this former Fren ...
19-06-2024
BBC 2
Series 4: 2. Rwanda
Romesh crosses the border from Uganda into Rwanda, a country he feels has been defined by westerners almost entirely by the 1994 genocide. More recently, the British government ...
12-06-2024
BBC 2
Series 4: 1. Uganda
Romesh Ranganathan explores Uganda, its people and culture, its past and its modern complexity, to find out whether Brits should add this this visually stunning, landlocked coun ...
07-06-2024
BBC 2
Christmas – The Sahara
A year ago, Romesh Ranganathan visited the Arctic to film a Christmas episode of the Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan. It was the hardest trip he has taken in his life &ndash ...
10-09-2023
BBC 2
Series 2: 4. Colombia
All Romesh knows about Colombia is cocaine barons and for most of his life, that was more than enough to stop him wanting to visit. But is Colombia's reputation for drug wars ju ...
06-08-2023
BBC 2
Series 2: 3. Bosnia And Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the mind of Romesh, is a place inextricably linked with war. He had never even heard the word Bosnia until the war broke out and finds it hard to conj ...
30-07-2023
BBC 2
Series 2: 2. Mongolia
In this episode Romesh Ranganathan travels to Mongolia – a country which he has almost no prior knowledge of, save for the fact that it is famously in the middle of nowher ...
23-07-2023
BBC 2
Series 2: 1. Zimbabwe
For most of Romesh's adult life, the only news coming out of Zimbabwe has been bad news. Robert Mugabe, the eviction of the white farmers and a general aura of danger have combi ...
09-07-2023
BBC 2
Christmas – The Hebrides
Everyone Romesh has ever met has told him how amazing the Scottish islands are - but nobody he knows has actually ever been there. Now, in a year when travel abroad has been all ...
11-12-2022
BBC 2
Series 1: Episode 2
For years all that most people in Britain have heard about Ethiopia is famine. And drought. And Bob Geldof singing about famine and drought. Now comedian Romesh Ranganathan is h ...
15-08-2021
BBC 2
Series 2: 2. Mongolia
In this episode Romesh Ranganathan travels to Mongolia – a country which he has almost no prior knowledge of, save for the fact that it is famously in the middle of nowher ...
23-07-2023
BBC 2
Series 1: Episode 1
Romesh Ranganathan is a comedian and TV presenter whose idea of a nice trip away is two weeks in the Algarve. In this three-part series he is travelling way beyond his comfort z ...
08-08-2021
BBC 2
Christmas – The Hebrides
Everyone Romesh has ever met has told him how amazing the Scottish islands are - but nobody he knows has actually ever been there. Now, in a year when travel abroad has been all ...
11-12-2022
BBC 2
Christmas
Comedian and TV presenter Romesh Ranganathan is travelling the furthest he's ever travelled outside of his cosy comfort zone as he heads to one of the coldest and most hostile e ...
20-12-2020
BBC 2
Series 2: 3. Bosnia And Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the mind of Romesh, is a place inextricably linked with war. He had never even heard the word Bosnia until the war broke out and finds it hard to conj ...
30-07-2023
BBC 2
Christmas – The Sahara
A year ago, Romesh Ranganathan visited the Arctic to film a Christmas episode of the Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan. It was the hardest trip he has taken in his life &ndash ...
10-09-2023
BBC 2
Series 3: 2. Romania
As with most Brits, the headlines that flash into Romesh’s mind when he thinks about Romania are those around communism, the 90s orphan crisis, maligned Roma and its great ...
20-04-2022
BBC 2
Series 2: 1. Zimbabwe
For most of Romesh's adult life, the only news coming out of Zimbabwe has been bad news. Robert Mugabe, the eviction of the white farmers and a general aura of danger have combi ...
09-07-2023
BBC 2
Series 1: Episode 3
Comedian Romesh Ranganathan travels to Albania to get an insider's guide to the country and to find out whether his own preconceptions about the Eastern European outpost are rig ...
22-08-2021
BBC 2