Netflix
Wang studs his special with memorable one-liners that dissect his feminist pretensions, the fear of ageing and UK perceptions of east Asia
From the other side of a global pandemic, here comes Phil Wang’s maiden Netflix special. Due for a spring 2020 recording, it finally taped this summer at “the sold out (reduced capacity) London Palladium”, in Wang’s words – and “I hope it’s all still relevant”. It is, with the judicious inclusion of a few Covid-era east Asian gags, an open goal for an act who playfully chews up racist stereotypes. Also present in Philly Philly Wang Wang: material on ageing (he’s 31), male contraception, the dos and don’ts of mimicking other people’s accents, and the difficulties of being a good person.
Wang isn’t one, he cheerfully admits. But is he a good comic? For this special, he folds highlights from 2017’s Kinabalu into the show he premiered at the 2019 fringe. The upshot is a consistently amusing if somewhat withheld hour: intelligent, self-unserious, and studded with memorable one-liners – even if, ambling back and forth, hands in pockets, Wang builds up barely a fingertip of steam, far less a head of it.