Romesh Ranganathan under 'huge pressure' taking on iconic Craig Charles show

16 August 2023 , 08:00

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Romesh Ranganathan and Tom Davis felt huge pressure taking on the show (Image: Amazon Prime)

Comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Tom Davis admitted they felt huge pressure in taking over Craig Charles' legendary game show.

The comedic duo are the new hosts of much-loved Japanese challenge show Takeshi's Castle, which originally featured commentary from presenter Craig. The rebooted show is set to capture the essence of 90's mayhem viewers first fell in love with, as 100 contestants attempt to storm the impenetrable Castle, fighting off all manner of guards, devils, and giant foam mushrooms along the way.

A League of Their Own star Romesh, 45, and Murder In Successville's Tom, 44, confessed taking over the reigns was a daunting challenge. Speaking to The Mirror, Romesh said: "We were aware obviously from being fans of the show that what Craig Charles did with it, it's legendary. It's gone down in folklore as like one of the great bits of kind of commentary.

The iconic gameshow will return later this month with Romesh and Tom as hosts (Amazon Prime)

"What we decided to was just do it our own way. If you like the way that Craig Charles does it, you can go back and watch that, you know. The worst thing that we could do is to try and do an impression of that. That wouldn't be doing ourselves any favours, wouldn't be doing the show any favours. I just don't think it's the right way to go."

He added: "It's kind of very much keeping the essence of the old show. They've amped up some of the games and they've like sort of given it a bit of a brush up, there's been slight changes . Tom explained: "I think Craig was just so, so iconic, but I guess we were watching it almost like the viewers might, as two mates just sitting down sort of chatting it through."

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Joking about what viewers can expect to be different, Tom said: "Nothing. It's exactly the same... I think it's fair to say they've used a lot of the old sets that just are a little bit more rustier, broken and dilapidated. I think it's fair to say they haven't freshened the water up since 1992. It's still full of dysentery.

"I think actually the charm of it is that they haven't meddled with it too much. If you're fans of the show way back when there's a lot of those old characters showing up again. I think that the problem would have been if they'd actually gone and tried to make it too slick or tried to mess with it with a format that actually doesn't require that. It's just nice to sit and watch something that is just crazy and anything can happen."

Romesh and Tom Take Takeshi’s Castle will launch exclusively on Prime Video in the UK and Ireland on 30 August.

Mia O'Hare